The Keeper of the Void
by ChroniclerEnigma
Summary: Frisk often went to books to escape from reality and live in a wonderland. But then she began to have nightmares of a place with no sun... When one night she realized that she wasn't alone in that void, sleeping became a great fear in her waking mind. However, the man who spoke in hands had other plans... (UNFINISHED outdated version Canceled due to rewrite. Will update soon.)
1. THE TRUTH OF DREAMS

Oh, the temptation of sleep. Frisk only wanted to read all night long, she didn't want to feel her eyes growing heavy and burning with exhaustion! She was in no mood to sleep. This story was right at the climax, and she wanted to know what was happening, but the focus of her mind was growing numb, and her eyes were blinking so much she couldn't keep track of the paragraph she was on.

With a defeated sigh, she fell back on her pillows, and her eyes closing as her fluffy cat made itself comfortable in the crook of her arm. It was always so dark… even with the light beside her, the place she went to when her eyes closed… was always so dark… and even with her cat her beside her, that place was also… so very lonely.

"Maybe it won't be so bad this time…" she said softly, though she didn't believe it. "

She felt the ground beneath her feet… something she was standing on, even though she knew, when she would flash open her eyes, she was laying down in her bed. She could feel the covers beneath her fingers, feel her cats soft fur… the warm blanket over her shoulders. And yet, the closer she went to sleep, the more she felt more the chill air that wafted through this place she would wander once again… The long, endless walk to nowhere.

But why did she have to wander? Well… that was simple. She stopped walking, and looking behind her at the way she had come. She kept her other foot pointed in the direction she was walking so she wouldn't loose track. There was still nothing to be seen… but there was someone there. Many people. All watching her. If she stopped, they would come close… and that made her feel as though she were about to be swallowed… or perhaps… that she would never wake up.

Before they could catch her, Frisk turned away to keep walking, because that always made her feel better. She didn't need to run, that only made her loose energy, and when she woke up, she would feel so tired.

However, she had barely taken a step when two cold hands folded around her shoulders, and stopped her. Still, Frisk could see nothing, but suddenly she felt as though she were suffocating. Her heart pounding, she tried to get away, but her legs- her arms wouldn't move!

She couldn't hear them, but she knew the one keeping her still was telling her to relax. But was that a trick? To give up? To fail. To be suffocated!? Paralyzed!? "I need to wake up…!" she devoted all her energy to move… just a little…

They promised to let her wake up, or sleep… after she saw something. Still they did not speak, but there was just as powerful an impression as though they had spoken.

"If you'll get to the point, and just let me sleep in peace, then fine!" she exclaimed, breathing a little better now.

The feeling was scolding her now.

"Why can't I just sleep? Why am I here?" Frisk whined, her body tingling with numbness. It felt as though these hands were cutting into her very mind. "Are you doing that?"

They dissuaded her comment, and now she was sure there was a prying at her mind.

"Stop that!"

They persisted.

"Ow… let me go!" she moved, but now the hands shifted, clamping around her left arm, another around her neck. She could breathe less now, and the strength that had filled her limbs for a moment was now quickly leaving her.

This being could do much worse than suffocate her.

Helpless, Frisk calmed, trembling in fear of the feeling of someone crawling into her mind.

Out of the dark, there were brief flickers of grass in a daylit sky, ancient carvings on pale stone, a blue glow from a field of blue flowers… darkness again… and then… anger. Warriors in animal skins, and makeshift weapons disappearing into the night. For the longest time the enemy was unseen… but so many humans fell, torn and maimed and shot down by strange weapons and sometimes by something that seemed impossible… lightening…? No. Magic. And then, in all their rage, and power, the monsters in the light of the flames bore down on the humans.

The darkness returned with a roiling helplessness. Something was wrong. Something that needed to be fixed. It was a suggestion. An unfinished answer. A question Frisk had to answer, that she had to answer for the hands to let her go. Her mind reeled with doubt. "I still don't understand what's wrong… exactly."

The screams rose again around Frisk and she felt as though she were there. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, the sound was so great, but she still couldn't move. The warriors, desperate, crying, and pleading for mercy, the bodies of horned, furred, clawed, but sentient beings were thrown into the depths of a great pit. After they had gone and been trapped, the humans found and descended upon the monsters' homes… and the defenseless families and children were captured and either killed, or taken and thrown into the pit as well.

"Please stop," Frisk gasped, overwhelmed with a feeling of despair and cruelty.

A great dark wall divided the dark from the day. But this dark… was far deep inside the earth, but this was a place where life prevailed.

This was impossible. "Why would they do this?"

The one whom she could not see… who held her paralyzed, was angry.

"You don't think I did this, do you? Just because I'm human?"

The anger softened to forgiveness.

"Stop giving me emotions! Just tell me what you want, I don't want to be in this darkness forever!" she exclaimed.

NEITHER DO I


	2. THE SEED OF CURIOSITY

"You've been looking at that shelf for a while, now, Frisk."

Having been perched on her toes and was suddenly startled, Frisk lost her balance and fell back. "Huh?!" she exclaimed, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. She looked up at a big blur, and then she looked down at the red rims on her nose, and quickly shoved them back into place. She blinked up at a kindly faced woman, tall, and in a flattering, yet simple a long pink dress. "Heh, you got me, Ms. Anne. Yeah… I can't find anything…" she grumbled.

"Well, you have checked out this entire shelf, so I'm not surprised."

"You keep track?" Frisk scratched the back of her head, blushing with a weary smile.

"What's that look for? There's no shame in reading so much." Ms. Anne's voice rose shrilly. "Fairy Tales. You want something you haven't read before? You can try the section to the-"

"No, no, I'm looking for something specific… uhm, the Hollow Earth theory? Not a story. Like, theories and archaeology...?" She was ready to say more, but trailed off and let Ms. Anne think.

Ms. Anne raised her head, surprised. "Hollow Earth… Jules Vern style of stuff? But you don't want stories, you want actual lore."

"Yeah! But… I can't really find anything… that I don't already know." Frisk waved a hand in dismay at the shelves before her.

"There's your problem right there; it should be in another genre entirely. There's a section for mysteries of the world, you know. Not stories like these." Ms. Anne turned away and waved a hand. "Follow me, I'll help you find something."

"Really?" Frisk scrambled to her feet, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and stumbling from the weight. "Uha!" she gasped as she nearly toppled, spread her feet, slung the backpack over again, and went on.

"You can leave it there," the librarian laughed.

"Someone might grab it…" Frisk grumbled as she followed Ms. Anne.

A minute later, Ms. Anne was stretching over a bookshelf adorned with many old looking and thick books. The books she aimed for were quite high up. Frisk wouldn't have been able to reach them without a chair from one of the computer desks… but it was a good thing Ms. Anne was so tall. And she was quite lean too. But perhaps a bit too much… however she didn't seem overwhelmed by all the books she had to carry sometimes when she went to put them away.

"Hmm…" Ms. Anne turned to Frisk and held out to her a tall and thin green book, and a wider white one. Frisk, gently took the books, but her weight gradually shifted when she held them, and she nearly fell again. She shrugged off her backpack to let it clunk to the floor while she reasserted her balance and began to flip through the white book furiously. "This is about Mt. Ebott…?" she blinked, shrugging the weight on her back, and balancing the books. "There's a hollow earth about Mt. Ebott?"

"I don't know. Is there?"

"Says so here." Frisk pointed to the index. "It's not all about Mt. Ebott, though. It's just one of the cases scattered around the world. The biggest one is mentioned at the North pole… says there are tunnels all over the world."

"You read the index. Of course you do!" Ms. Anne giggled.

"Well, yeah, it's how you find stuff…" Frisk blushed, looking through more. Slowly, her legs bent, and she lowered herself to sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. "Thank you… I haven't read this before."

"Let me guess. You out of classes early? Buses are at 3:40." Ms. Anne began to walk away, watching Frisk over her shoulder. "Hey?"

"Okay…" she was gone into the book already.

"I'll come get you." Ms. Anne laughed, walking back to her desk to check in books and put them away.

Pale, thin lipped, eyes wide with furrowed brows, Frisk followed the lines with furious concentration. At the rate she read, it were as though her life depended on it, or perhaps as if she were desperate to find something… there were things she thought weren't a part of what she needed to know, but as she kept going, things gradually began to fall into place. Soon, Frisk's eyes wandered the paper, not truly reading. She gripped the book with white knuckles. This was more than she had expected to verify. What could it all mean?

"Frisk! It's almost 3:19! Come here and let me check those books out for you." Had Ms. Anne spoke just then? She couldn't be sure. She should check, but…

"Frisk, dear, wake up!" Ms. Anne called gently.

Taking a deep breath, Frisk willed for the shakiness in her limbs to go away. Untangling her lanky legs, Frisk stood herself up, hefted her backpack up slowly with one arm, carefully cradling the new books in one arm.

"Frisk, just bring me the books and you can go back for… "Ms. Anne cut herself off short as Frisk suddenly swung the backpack over her shoulder and hurriedly took another step forward from all the weight. She ambled over to the counter.

Ms. Anne was shaking her head. "How many books have you got in there, anyways?"

"Uhm… five… no… I've got a few smaller paper back ones so there's 10. There are five heavy ones for class, and then I've got notebooks and pencils and… uh..." Frisk trailed off as she slid said the books over the counter. "Hey, did you know," Ms. Anne grinned, "That there was actually some kind of war over the territory of Mt. Ebott between two Native American tribes?"

"I know about it. There's still a few monuments there that tell of the story." She scanned the book with a red light, and then went to checking her computer, squinting a bit as she did.

"Uh…" Frisk's face went blank. "How come we never learned about it?"

"There's not much to make a test on?" she shrugged, "At least there are resources for us to learn things outside of the school system, right? How closed off things would be." She tisked, checking out the book, and slid it back to her. "Are you done with any of those others? Have you even got anymore room in that backpack, or do I need to get you another one?" she was smirking, but her eyes were smiling.

"Uhm…" Frisk shoved up her glasses, squinting as she thought. "Uhm… I could… uh…" she slid off her back pack with a heavy "Umph!" of strain and unzipped it. Her hand appeared over the counter to drop one, two, three books, and a third- but then her hand reached up grabbed it and took it back. "Never mind that one…" she stood up again, grabbed the new ones, and slid them inside her backpack. She zipped it, stood, slinging it slowly over her shoulder.

"Sure you haven't got any more books you've finished?"

"Uhm… I have a report I have to finish tonight, and there are specific references I need from some of these… uhm… that shouldn't take me long to do… its only three pages worth…"

"Will you be able to finish with that all that lore burning your mind?"

"Uh… I hope?" Frisk grinned. "I didn't know Mt. Ebott had such a cool past! I love these kind of things… it's so exciting!" she jumped up and down. "A world under the ground? And there's ways it seems real, and other ways it's just faded into myth as spirits who could be nice or evil and just caused all this trouble and people who didn't like them, and sides of the story is just so weird and biased, and it's hard to tell which is true or not, but obviously the parts about magic and sacrifices and things like that is totally fake, but- well, no, I know certain people did sacrifice… uh… and they had meanings for it… so maybe it's written fantastically but it's really not… It's just symbolic…"

Ms. Anne was nodding with a smile, "Okay, Frisk. Have fun."

Frisk was grinning. "I wonder if there's any sign of the tribes that used to be there! But I would think whatever relics there are would be barred off and protected or something… so I probably couldn't see it… being an untrustworthy vandalous kid."

"Probably not," she shrugged, "But it's still cool to read about."

"Yeah! It really is!"

"Did you know Mt. Ebott is only a few miles out of town? You could probably get there in some 30 minutes."

"I… don't much go into public places aside from school libraries… willingly, I mean…" Frisk looked withdrawn now.

"I sense a field trip coming on, Frisk." Ms. Anne grinned.

"No way! I just read and watch tv, I don't go anywhere." She looked away, looking sad.

"Well, if you ever want a ride over, let me know."

"R-really?"

"Yes, really. I'm here for you, Frisk. Besides, you have to know the feeling of reading good book in the park."

Frisk smiled. "I've sat on a swing."

"Oh that's fun too! But there's the most beautiful sunset there…" Ms. Anne looked dreamy now. "Oh well, if you ever decide you want a ride, let me know." She winked.

"Yeah!" Frisk nodded, "Uhm… I better go… Thank you for finding the books!" she hurried on out, waving, and nearly tripping again. She caught her balance again and went on out the doors. Ms. Anne shook her head at the child as she ran out in a frenzy.


	3. YOU IDIOTS

Frisk looked both ways, then dived through the crowd of kids until she was amidst them. They were all so much taller than she was. She hunched over and walked quickly, ignored by all of them. She hoped… she hoped… not today… not with so many books… it would hurt this time… When she was outside the doors, she tried not to run to her bus. They would notice her then. Regardless, she walked fast. She took a deep breath. It wasn't really like they wouldn't follow her… But at least she might be able to get into a good seat… it was a long ride home… she might as well find a way to give herself enough room to open up that book again…

Frisk came near her bus, and walked along side it… There was a rush of movement out of the corner of her eye, a blur, and she jumped back. "Hey worm!" A fat pudgy arm put itself between Frisk and just approaching the door to the bus entrance. "Trying to get away from me, are you? Trying to make me fail? You get that done yet?"

"Weeeeell, I _said_ I wasn't very good at math, but…" she fished around in her jacket, "I did finish it. Unfortunately, I did it on the run and couldn't properly fold it away. I apologize." she dropped the wad in his outstretched hand.

"Is this supposed to be funny?" he glared.

Frisk blinked. "The answers to the questions?"

"The teacher isn't going to accept this, you know that, right?"

"Uh… copy it?" she shrugged. The glaring got worse.

He scoffed. "You're telling me… you made me work?"

 _Man, your breath stinks…_ her nose twisted distastefully. "Oh no… no, I'd never do that."

He shoved the paper back into her hands. "Finish that and give it to me tomorrow morning. Meet me at the doors by the gym. If you don't…" he slammed his hand into the bus, making Frisk flinch and look away.

The other dude, not much taller than Frisk, with a squarish face stepped forward. "What about my paper?" his grey eyes were cold, but almost unsure. Of what?

"It's just writing…" she waved a hand, "Don't worry, it'll be done."

"It's not done yet?"

"What, did the teacher change the due date?" and then she added under her breath, "Leaches…"

"Hey!" pudgy slammed his hand into the bus again. "What was that?" he looked up, seeing a kid looking out the window at him. He flicked off the kid.

Frisk flinched, watching Pudgy smile. "Get it done. Work is due tomorrow." He dragged at her hair as he walked by, and she fell at the base of the doors.

"Frisk, get up already. Why you keep trippin anyways?" the bus driver groaned. "Learn not to trip over your own feet, please."

"Yeah… wouldn't that be nice… my feet are so clumsy." She clambered to her knees, grabbed her books, and scurried up the steps.

"You have even more books today!" a little boy exclaimed from the front seat. "How do you even carry that?"

"You're much stronger than you look!" trilled the voice of a girl with pigtails said to the right. Frisk passed three kids who looked up at her and asked:

"Hey, what does this mean?" a kid, the same kid that had been watching the bullies, held up his middle finger.

"Uh-?!" Frisk jumped back, waving a hand at them to stop. "Don't do that. Its bad. Its mean. Don't annoy anyone who does that to you, basically… They'll hurt you. You'll get in trouble."

"Oh." Eyes wide, they sat back, apparently educated.

Frisk made her way to the middle, where someone called: "Hey, sit here!"

She walked on and approached the empty seat, but a boy threw himself across it and propped his feet up so she couldn't pass. Moron. She took a step back, unable to effectively turn because of her backpack, but ended up crossing another leg and a foot and fell back. Sharp edges dug into her shoulders, and her senses jarred from the tense fall she was unable to block herself from feeling. "Ow…" she grit her teeth, sitting there for a moment.

"Frisk, you can't sit on the floor."

Frisk scooted back, and into the mostly empty space next to the door in the middle of the bus. She sat her backpack there and curled up beside it.

"Frisk!"

She didn't answer. She grabbed her book and started reading while paper wads were thrown at her.

"Kid, I'm gonna call your parents!"

"Good luck with that. He's always losing his phone." she called up the aisle, seeing the Bus drivers' reflection look away and frown. She sat down, made sure her bag and books to the left of her near the wall of the bus were secured and between her feet, because they might slide, someone would ruin her books again… steal her stuff… Frisk unfolded her book, but even if her eyes moved across the words, she just couldn't make any meaning of them. It was so hard to concentrate with all the people around her singing, and screaming randomly, and jeering at her to catch her attention. She wished she had earphones… but the last time she had used them on the bus, someone had stolen them. And then they had tried to steal her phone… but she'd run away.

"Whatcyha readin?" the voice came from the seat next to her, a high schooler with a lopsided grin, sweaty shirt, baggy pants struggling to stay up. He was chewing gum loudly.

"History." Frisk answered dully.

"What kind of history? World war stuff?" there was a stupid smirk on his face. Slander of history loading.

"Native American history. Old legends of Mt. Ebott." Frisk put simply.

"Mt. Ebott has history? Though it was just a pile of cow poop. Lots of farm country."

"No… it's a park."

"Oh, haha!" he punched another dude on the arm and they started a conversation on cow poop and farms.

"Idiots…" Frisk mumbled as she went on reading. Although at this point she was having a hard time concentrating without marveling at how hopeless these people were. Those little kids in the front… poor things had terrible influences. These people had no common sense. She looked out the window and let her thoughts wander till they settled, she wasn't going to get any reading done… not here amidst this madness.

YOU UNDERSTAND

Frisk jumped, and looking around, expecting to see someone… she could have sworn she had heard the same voice from last night… Blinking as she thought, she wondered at what it meant. There was no way this could be real. Taking a deep breath, and wiping her eyes, she opened up her book again, determined to distract herself.

The words began to disappear, and then rearrange themselves:

IF YOU WISH FOR SILENCE...

The edges of the book began to fade into darkness, and Frisk felt a greater heaviness behind her eyes. Panic made he heart race, and yet somehow that did nothing to keep the sleep from closing around her mind like claws...

SIMPLY SLEEP


	4. FALLS DOWN

FALLS DOWN

Frisk woke up by the feeling of a cold hand jostling her shoulder. She jerked awake, fumbling her book and clutching it close as she stared around her. "What?"

The few kids that were on the bus leaned over the seats and peered down at her with perturbed expressions. "Get up!"

"Oh…" Frisk got her things together, shakily making her way down the aisle. Well… the dream had been quite short… but she'd slept well enough. Strange… in disbelief, she shook her head and kept walking, concentrating on her foot work.

Getting off the bus was always such a relief, but getting down the isle was no easy feat. Everyone kept trying to trip her, and grab at her books. She kicked someone's leg to clear the path and hurried down the isle while someone howled.

"What are you doing kicking people?" the bus driver groaned.

"They tried to trip me."

"Ride in a seat next time?"

"Make some room then…" Frisk grumbled as she skipped down the stairs, hopping to the concrete, and taking off up the lawn of maybe five yards. She hurried across the sidewalk, bolted up the wooden steps to the front door, propped her books on her leg while she fished the keys out of her pocket. She regained her hold on the books, slipped inside and slammed the door closed behind her.

Shifting from foot to foot, she debated dropping the books on the table or going straight to her room. If she sat down at the table, she might just bruise her forehead again, and then she would be uncomfortable because of the plain wooden chairs, and her dad would complain about her leaving the books on the table. "AGH," she wheeled around and went to her room to the right of the kitchen, plopped her books down on the quilt of her bed, shrugged her backpack off next to the shelf of shoes and things at the end of her bed, and proceeded to slam face first into her bed.

There was a low rumbling, and soft fluff touched her hand. The motor sat down on her hand, purring vigorously. Frisk peeked an eye up at the very fluffy brown cat with grey eyes squinting back at her contentedly, tail twitching slightly.

"What are you doing sitting on my hand?" Frisk said with a smile. "I can't pet you that way."

"Meee-ee" the cat choked, tucking its front paws beneath itself.

Frisk began to move her hand, but the cat whined and bared its fangs: "MEEEEE" it hissed a little.

"Fine, I'll just sit here and do nothing then…" and soon Frisk was drifting off, her mind brutally rehashing the events of the day. Sometimes her mind would linger on the good things, but more often it rehearsed all the things that annoyed her. Today it was a fair match. She had to fight to think about Mt. Ebott, and wonder about visiting the place. Soon she was rested and awake enough the more she thought about the legend, and she had some energy in her. Prying herself out from under her cat, and startling it awake, she walked out of her room and simply stared at the wooden floor.

"What am I doing standing up." She stated bluntly, mind blanking. She looked at her hands, realized they were shaking, and her stomach was growling. "Oh." She went to the cabinet, took out a box of mac n' cheese, grabbed a pot, filled it up with water and slammed it on the stove. After she set the timer, she made her way around a protesting kitty to grab the green book in her room and read more at the table.

She was beginning to loose herself in the book when she realized the timer was ringing. She jumped up, seeing the water boiling furiously. "Agaaggh!" she scrambled to pour in the macaroni while turning down the heat. She stirred absent mindedly for the next few minutes, becoming more and more engrossed in the urge to call Ms. Anne and go to Mt. Ebott.

Frisk drained the water from the macaroni in the sink, poured it back into the pot, tossed it butter and milk… and three extra slices of extra cheese from a block. She grinned rebelliously, got herself a bowl and sat down that the table, continuing to read while she waited for the food to cool down.

There was a rumble outside, and Frisk jumped back in her chair, grabbing the table to keep from falling. Her eyes went wide and she looked out the window. Then she realized the sound had been an engine. She sighed, and looked down at the bowl of yellow mush. "Oh." She reached for the spoon and realized she hadn't got one. She remedied that problem and went to eat the almost cold macaroni.

She frowned. "Cheesy enough but how freakin long have I been reading?" a glance at the clock told her it was 6:03. "Well I don't know when I stopped cooking so that doesn't tell me much, dang it."

A second or so later, the door swung open, and a lean man in jeans, plain grey shirt and denim jacket strode inside. He waved at Frisk, and she waved back.

"There's some cheese on the stove if you want it," Frisk chipped.

"I gotta teach you to make meatloaf…" he grinned as he swept off his coat and hung it on a coat rack in the small entrance hallway.

"You know I can't focus on things. I couldn't even remember my spoon!" she waved it in the air dramatically, and a macaroni fell away and landed on the table. The cat, sitting on a chair, suddenly stood up on the table and began to nibble at the noodle.

"I'm glad you're a bookworm, Frisk, but you have to remember to get out of your head sometimes." He walked over, ruffling her hair and giving a light kiss on her forehead. While he got himself a bowl of macaroni, he asked Frisk: "What did you pick up this time?"

"Mt. Ebott lore." Frisk said simply, sitting down her book.

"Ooooh… the old park? Well I know there are a few monuments there… haven't I taken you there?"

"A long time ago, I think…" Frisk sidestepped the question, mom had been there then… "There was this big battle over land between two native American tribes there. Thing is, it's kind'a hard to believe, unless it's all just symbolic. There's regular people for one tribe, which the story sided with because they were the ones who won the war, and then there was the "enemy" tribe which were treated like demons and monsters."

"Really? That's extreme."

"I wonder if maybe the tribe that won might have just been mean towards them, because there's a lot of evidence of the war physically taking place, but there's so many details about the enemy literally having the appearance of monsters. Scales and horns… Could have just been masks or war paint, and animal skins, but whatever."

"Be awesome if they were really monsters though, right?" he gave her this knowing glance as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.

Frisk looked away and grinned widely, "Maaaaaybe…" she said lightly, "But it's just wishful thinking because…" she fidgeted with the corners of the book, absently flipping pages and looking through photos.

"You love the fairy tales."

"Yeeep." She chuckled smugly. "Because of you."

"I'm glad you still read… I'm sorry I haven't been around as much, Frisk. I'm sure you can read on your own now," he laughed, "but it's just hanging out…"

"What are we doing right now?"

He shook his head, a grin on his face. "So what exactly happened in the war? How'd the "good guys" win?"

"Well... she thought for a moment. "Actually, the "good guys" dug a trench for the "enemy" because they had heard there was going to be an attack at night. Welp, there was an attack, and the other tribe fell into the trench. So happened, the trench gave way to a massive cave system. It's said the people still live underground, because the hole they came through was sealed up, along with every other cave opening that was found. It's been so long though, you can barely tell because of all the weathering if there were any places that had been sealed… there were a few suspicious places, but…" she shrugged. "the story gets more and more vague, and mysterious."

"How so?"

"It's said there was a magic that sealed all the "monsters" on top of sealing them away. Something separate. I take it was a ceremony. Throughout history, there's tales of monsters returning. And being killed, or escaping… there's also this big myth that every once in a while, an entrance will open to the underground, like a sink hole or something, and people will disappear in the park."

"I've heard people disappear." Dad nodded.

"The most profound story is where a monster Lion man returned a child that had disappeared, but the child was dead in his arms."

"Whoa, that's intense."

"They attacked the lion man, so say fatally injuring him. He didn't fight back, but fled, and got "swallowed up by the ground, and they were gone". At least, that's how the legends say it."

"That's pretty cool there's a myth like that in our small town. I'm surprised I didn't learn about it. Its local history."

"You know how native American history is shoved under the rug, right?"

Dad sighed. "Yeah." He finished up the last of the macaroni, and stood up to wash it in the sink. "Hurry up and eat, bookworm."

Frisk looked down at her bowl. She'd barely eaten any of it. She shoved her book aside, put her bowl in front of her and ravenously devoured every last cold cheesy noodle. Once she was done, she moved to the sink to wash out her bowl. "Hey, dad?"

"What?" he called from the living room, turning down the volume on the tv.

"Would it be alright if I went with Ms. Anne to Mt. Ebott?"

"The librarian? You besties, now?" he didn't look at her, but Frisk saw the grin on his face.

"She offered to drive me over sometime."

"I've met her before. She seems alright. Just make sure you have your phone with you, okay? Call me if anything goes amiss, I'll be right over. Let me know before you go anywhere, alright?"

"Yeah!" she exclaimed happily. "Thanks! And I don't really leave my phone, so… kinda need the dumb thing for everything." After finishing washing her bowl, Frisk took her book from the table and went to her room. "Welp, I'll be reading till morning."

"You better not."

She giggled mischievously and plopped down to read more. Her cat appeared after a few minutes, and made itself comfy on her back. Sometime after reading a few 100 pages, a great, admirable display of fighting sleep though it was, Frisk finally gave in to sleep in the early hours of the morning…


	5. IN PERSEVERANCE

IN PERSEVERANCE

The book barely peeked out from under the desk. Frisk could no longer hear what was going on around her, but she looked up a few seconds after the bell rang and her classmates scrambled around in chaos to leave. Once the paths were clear, Frisk marked her place, slung her backpack over her shoulder and grabbed her notebook off her desk. The page was half filled with notes. Though it had the days date on it, and was much more than seemed the rest of the class had learned the entire lesson, somehow the teacher failed to see the hard work.

"Frisk, back here."

"What?" Frisk was at the doorway now. She pushed her glasses up her nose and caught sight of Mrs. English scowling across the room. At her. "Y-yes?"

"I need you to take this detention slip."

"Wh-what? B-but I- I did my work, and I took notes?" she held up her book. "I wasn't loud, or anything!"

"Take the detention slip."

"At least look at my notes, please." Frisk hurried to the desk in the back of the room.

Mrs. English deftly looked over the page, and her scowl became even more squiggly. It looked as if she'd just tasted a lemon. "I can't even read this chicken scratch." She squinted, and then thrust back the notebook. "Well, someone's got to take the blame. And I already filled it out. Go tell all your friends you got in trouble because of them."

Frisk dropped her book, and took the detention slip. "For not paying attention in class…" it read. The teacher knelt and took the white book, waving it at Frisk. "I'll be taking this." She frowned at the book. "This title isn't even for releasing out of the library… how'd you get this?"

Without saying anything, Frisk wove her way between the desks and then stopped at the doorway, before looking back at the teacher, pausing, just staring into space for a moment. Being someone who read books a lot, she'd learned not to judge a book by its cover. But she couldn't get over how confusing it was that Mrs. English taught mathematics instead of English.

"What is it?" Mrs. Notmath snapped.

Looking into her eyes, Frisk said firmly: "Your class will be just as loud."

"Why is that?" she raised her chin and a curious eyebrow.

"No one will ever know." She let that sink in before going out into the hall.

"Well, I'm not going to make it in time for class, so I might as well just go to the office. Library isn't too far…" in spite of the detention slip, she wrinkled it in her fist, stuffed the detention slip into her pocket without a second glance. It always felt so weird hearing her feet tap all alone… sometimes you could hear lonely footsteps all across the school if the doors of the classrooms were open, and often times you wouldn't even see the person making the sound.

"Like a ghost, in a way…" she thought, and the strangeness of it made her grin.

The bell rang, and Frisks' feet lost the motivation to keep walking some four doors down the hall. Doors closed, and one boy skidded into the doorway, and ran inside while the teacher wasn't looking, but some were unlucky enough to be pointed out.

"But it was just a literal second!"

"Office."

"I'm failing to see how this helps me with learning anything in class. You know, this is kinda just an excuse for me to skip class?" the door closed in his face. "Ugh." Slouching, he walked some pace behind Frisk.

Casting a glance back, Frisk realized this was the new kid. Wilson. He'd been here for a month now. She thought he might be nice, even smart when she'd first met him. They sat together in first period. But shortly after the bullies of the school started inviting him to their table… well… he didn't exactly fit in with the brutes, but… Frisk preferred to keep her distance for safety reasons.

Unfortunately, shortly after turning her gaze away, footsteps hurried beside her. She made sure not to panic and speed up her own walk.

"Hey, you're Frisk, right?"

"Yesss… Wilson?"

Wilson grinned, "Yeah! What are you doing late to class?"

"Taking the blame." she held up a detention slip.

"Really?" he gawked. "Wow. What class?"

"Mrs. Notmath."

"Who?"

Frisk sighed, "Her name is Mrs. English, but she teaches math."

"But if she teaches math…?" he looked so confused.

Frisk shrugged with a smirk. "It's just her name. People call her that."

"I guess it's still funny, but…" he laughed. "Oh, is it that loud class where there's something that sounds like a crow screeching?"

"That would be us."

"Our whole class laughs so much because of you guys. Even our teacher. It's really fun."

"So glad my class could make it fun for you. Notmath was hoping I could discourage the class from being so loud with this thing when I complained…" she laughed, but didn't say anything more. "Hah."

"You're not going to?"

"Let her suffer."

"Ouch."

Frisk shrugged. "I was doing what I was supposed to. This is getting even. Heck, she should be thankful I was able to get half a page of notes through all that chaos." She held up her notebook.

"What is that?" he laughed.

Frisk "Chicken scratch, apparently…" she mumbled gloomily.

"Eh, it's okay. Their just notes, right? Not homework? You can read it, can't you?"

"Yeah." She said in a chipper tone. But then she frowned, and looked hard and long at the notebook as they walked. "I think…? Sometimes I'm not looking where I'm writing…. Agh… dang it two sentences got jumbled…" she shoved her glasses up her nose with the notebook and continued deciphering.

"Maybe it would be easier to get a laptop?"

Frisk blanched. "Nope. That'd go down the drain in an instant. Literally."

"Why?"

"I'll give you a good piece of advice. Keep your electronics secret when you're in public."

"… Oh…"

"… Also… I can tell you're not… a bad dude, but uh… those guys you're hanging out with right now… be careful, and don't do anything to get on their bad side."

"Yeah… I got that hint… I was thinking maybe I could just start avoiding them…"

"Don't do that, man," Frisk groaned. "They're dangerous."

"But I don't want to hurt anyone!" he hissed, looking around them.

"Yeah, but they do. They've got their eye on you."

Wilson looked distraught. "I don't really know what I can do, then… do you think they'll make me hurt people?"

It took her a moment to respond. "I… wouldn't put it past them."

Wilson got to the office door first, and let Frisk inside. "Hello?" Frisk tapped at the counter that stood as tall as her, and caught the gaze of a woman with a blindingly red shirt, short cut hair, reading glasses on a chain, and a gaze so blank and cold she could compete with a skeleton for a staring contest. There were scowl lines beside her lips that deepened as she flicked her gaze between the two kids. "Late?"

"Yeah…" they said awkwardly.

The woman huffed, swiveling on her chair to flop her arm at a drawer and swing it open. "Huh. I need to get more… Hey, Sally, you got any more late notes?" she called behind her to another desk lady with long auburn hair and a green shirt and slack pants. She was staring at her computer monitor intently, brows furrowed, and hand clamped over mouth in concentration. "Sally!"

Sally jerked upright. "Huh…?!" she blinked rapidly before she realized what had been asked for her. "Oh…" she looked in a drawer, closed it, stared for a moment, absently began to lift and look under stacks of papers. "Uh…" she looked up and shrugged. "You might need to print more." Her voice was so quiet, and her eyes were wide.

"Agh… take a seat." the first desk lady groaned as she stood.

Frisk and Wilson sat on the green padded chairs lined up on the wall. The air was stiff and cold, the room smelled like perfume, and the printer was humming loudly over the counter somewhere. and Wilson shifted bored and uncomfortably, but somehow Frisk was able to open up a thick green book from her backpack and start pouring over it. She seemed perfectly calm, quiet, still, with her legs crossed in the chair. Someone noticed and called her to sit right. Twice. She never did. Had she even heard?

"Here." The lady hobbled back with an even deeper gloomy expression, and flopped the notes and a pen down on the counter. "Hurry up."

"Hate to waste your time…" Frisk muttered beneath her breath.

Wilson blinked. She had been listening.

Frisk pressed the bookmark down into her book and flipped the pages closed before unfolding herself, standing up, going to the counter and signing her sheet. She glanced at the clock on her wrist, and wrote the time. Wilson got up, and signed his, but asked the desk lady the time. "Can't you read the clock?"

"Not from this distance…"

"Get some glasses kid. Or a watch. 2:15."

"Heck, class will be over in 30 minutes."

"What's that?"

"Uh…" he finished scribbling, and went to the door, surprised to see Frisk holding the door for him. "Thanks," he walked on, but Frisk caught him.

"Hey, the clock was pretty close. How do you see anything in class?"

"Uh… well…"

"The only weakness is not being able to see. Put on your glasses, alright?"

"Yeah…" he scratched the back of his head as Frisk turned and walked away- not towards next period. She was for the library. "Where you 'goin?"

"I have to ask Mrs. Anne something."

"Okay. See you later?" he looked worried.

Frisk waved a notebook. "See ya."

Mrs. Anne was just barely visible behind a book case, but Frisk saw her hand reaching for a higher book case on the wall. After a few moments, she was standing right behind the librarian. She waited patiently for her to finish filing away a book, and climb down the stool.

"Eeep!" she jumped back when she saw Frisk. "Frisk!" she exclaimed, and laughed. "You scared me, that time."

Frisk grinned, "I'm a ninja."

A suspicious smirk crossed Ms. Anne's face. "Is that how you got here this period?"

"Uh… yeah…" she clicked her tongue, "So, uhm, I told dad about going to the park. He said it was okay!"

"Great! Actually, I have time after school today. Would you like to go today?"

"That would be awesome!" Frisk jumped in joy. "I gotta phone my dad and let him know though."

"And I have to tell the office I'll be driving you. And unless you have a pass, you had better get back to class."

"Heeeeeeey," Frisk laughed. "Yeah, I'll be going. See you here?"

"See you here," Ms. Anne smiled.

There was a copy machine by the counter, and Frisk opened it up and put out the waded piece of math homework. She flattened it to the best of her ability, and then a few button presses later, the machine whirred and out popped a perfectly smooth piece of paper covered in printed wrinkles and mathematical chicken scratch.

A genuine smile crossed Frisks' face then, and she said wistfully: "Beautiful." Bubbling with joy, Frisk skipped her way to the exit, fished the detention slip from her pocket which read: "Detention this afternoon at 3:00" and once she found a trashcan, she wadded the paper up and threw it inside.


	6. THE UNSEEN

THE UNSEEN

Mt. Ebott isn't one of the greatest mountains in the range, but there is a great legend that lurked beneath the entire mountain range… the entire surface. A secret world that hundreds of years ago was split away from the world. It wasn't just that it was under the ground, but hidden away in some other dimension. There are ancient buildings and stones that date back 1000 years, and there are caves, but none of them deep or complex. There is one place where at first glance might be a stairway, in a simple square building with a pavilion out looking the entire mountain… but if there ever were a stairway, there is now no trace. Only a solid rock wall several feet thick. Archeologists studied the sight between 1957 and 1998, but after discovering too little, the place was let lie, and recorded still. Perhaps one day, a secret passage will be found, and there will truly be a world Underground revealed.

The place isn't actively studied anymore, and now trails weave around the monuments as a scenic view for runners, bikers, and tourists.

Frisk sat at the base of a tree, with a green book between her knees. Several shadows fell over her. Suddenly alert, she looked up, shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose to see four boys. Two of them were bullies from school, one she wasn't all too familiar with, but she did recognize Wilson. He seemed really anxious, his jaw clenched, and avoiding her gaze. Two boys had cigarettes.

Frisk coughed.

"What a way to track someone down."

Frisk coughed again, "How long have you been doing that, now?" she shielded her mouth and nose with a sleeve, scowling. _So they're the ones who have been making me cough for the past seven minutes. Why am I not surprised?_

"Whatchya doin all the way up here? You by yourself?"

Frisk looked between them. "Are you?"

"You like questions, don't you?"

"As much as you do- hey!" a boy with a yellow shirt jumped forward and wrenched the book from Frisk's hands. "Give that back!" Frisk scrambled up but someone kicked her right shoulder and she fell back with a cry.

The boys jeered, and began looking through her book. "What is this… fairy tales? Ha- what? Mt. Ebott is crawling with monsters underneath the ground?" he chuckled. "You really believe that? What are you reading this crap for? It's not real. Just a bunch of smart-ass people trying to fool you."

"I know it's not real."

"Then why bother?"

"I think it's cooler than..." she looked away, scowling.

"Na, cooler than what?"

"My life…" she mumbled.

The boy stared at her for a moment. "Huh… Yeah, I guess so…" he held out the book to her, pages facing the earth. Frisk watched him for a moment, slowly extending a hand. "Go on." He said. When her fingers were about to brush the hard cover, the book slipped from his fingers. "Ooops." Frisk had her hand over the book, but a shoe came down on it, and ground her hand and the book into the dirt.

"Ow-ow-ow HEY!" she used her other hand to smash into the boy's leg and dig her nails into his skin. He yelped, jerked away and fell over. The other boys went to him and tried to help him up.

"Hey, you okay?" Pudgy was trying to help him up. Wilson was looking between Frisk and them. The extra had his eyes trained on her and was surging forward with a look of murder on his face. Scrambling, taking rapid breaths, Frisk was scooping her book and small bag and racing down the hill. The boys followed. With a heavy burst of adrenaline, Frisk raced down a swerving path, angling carefully as she took a curve that might have thrown her into a ditch. She took another path to her left, darting into a way that wound through some of the forest.

She heard the boys cries behind her, and she raced further and further into the woods, heart thumping wildly and almost painfully in her chest. Her vision was getting blurry, and she fought to keep her glasses in place. She was getting tired… Once she was in thick enough foliage… she tested some trees, and finally picking a tall oak with enough handholds, she made her way up the trunk. She climbed high up into the boughs, until she was sure she couldn't be seen. She clung to the branch, just trying to calm herself and breathe more softly so no one could hear her.

Ants made their way up and down the trunk, and a few fluffy jumping spider's went about their merry way as well. After watching them scurry between cracks for a short while, she heard the boys shouts and she jumped, and looked around. Thankfully, she couldn't see all that well through the trees… good… they wouldn't likely be able to see her either. Frisk realized her breathing had calmed down, and she sighed a little.

It sounded at first like the boys were coming up the path she had taken, but because she had found a tree far from the beaten path, she hoped it was less likely they would check. They came nearer and nearer, but then their voices grew more and more distant until she could barely hear them at all.

Relieved, Frisk sighed, and looked down at her book. She held on to the tree with one hand, and her feet propped up on others while she sat on another. Wearily flipping open the pages, she looked over the damage that had been done to them. The sight of the dirt ground into the wrinkled and bent pages made her stomach knot. Tears came to her eyes. She sat the book on her knee, using her free arms sleeve to wipe at her eyes. Despite how careful she was trying to be, the book suddenly plopped out of the tree and onto the leaves.

"Argh." She stared down at the green cover. At least the poor thing had landed on its backside. Waiting a moment, she thought of a careful way down, and began to slip down through the tree. Suddenly, her hand slipped, her feet rocked and she tripped and twisted down through the tree, some 5 feet down she caught a branch with one hand. The bark dug into her hand, and from the sting she fell another three feet and plopped on her knees and hands in an uncomfortable bed of leaves and damp dirt. "Oof!" she sat still in shock from the pain, and looked beside her, mind feeling numb. Something had shaken her down?

Before her, strangely scattered and impressioned in the shape of a rectangle, there was no green book. Frowning, and scooting her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, Frisk stood, wheeling about in confusion. Her legs and hands ached from the fall. Glancing at her hands, she saw they were scuffed and bleeding. Her jeans however, were covered in muddy stains and clingy pieces of wet leaves. Feeling at the skin under the thin jeans, she felt small pangs of burning and bruising. It would probably hurt more later, too…

Overhead, the sky was darkening with a thin layer of clouds. They were quite high, and the sun was still visible as it was setting in the east- the direction of the path she would take to get out of the woods. It was beginning to drizzle.

Reassessing the area, she took a breath, scooted her red glasses up her nose. Looking down at the spot she had dropped the book, then looked beneath her, Frisk realized with complete bafflement that her book really was gone. But it didn't make sense unless it got buried in the leaves. She kicked at some with her shoes. Maybe someone had hidden behind the trees? But… the leaves were so thick, even the slightest shuffle created noise. Whoever had stolen her book had to either be the wind knocking over leaves, or a complete ninja. But again… there had been no tossing of leaves. And she could see no footprints other than her own.

In the distance, the boys were yelling, arguing… maybe more. Had they felt the tremor too? There was another tremble, and Frisk staggered. She put an arm out to the tree to keep herself up, but when she expected to feel the bark of the tree, she instead felt something soft that cradled her own hand- another hand. When she looked, her hand was in mid-air, holding nothing, and her balance was regained.

Frisk slipped her hands under the straps of her backpack over the fore of her shoulders, and held tight, knees and back bent in a crouch. Her thoughts had gone as quiet as her breath, and now she only watched and listened. The boys were gone; of that she was sure. But someone else had grabbed her hand, taken her book, and disappeared without a sound. It felt as though there were eyes on her back, but as she circled, she could see no one but trees and the leaves rustling in the wind.

The impulse to suddenly start running was beginning to make her blood pound in her ears. _I can't even see anyone._ "Uhm…" Frisk took a step back, looking over the forest with wide eyes. Not a second later, she was turning around and running back onto the path. It was getting so dark. _I should call Mrs. Anne… she said she was going to be back… she's probably worried sick!_

Her feet thudding lightly across the ground, she was upon the trail in seconds, and was nearly at the end of it where it joined with the main road, and suddenly she was flying backwards and rolling across the ground. As she scrambled backwards and clumsily got to her feet and faced the gap of space- where no one stood, and yet she knew from the ache in her arms and the burn of her stretched skin that someone had grabbed her and thrown her away.

There was a cigarette on the path. Had the boys come this way? The wind blew from the left, and the leaves from off the path were flung over the cigarette. It caught fire, lighting up brightly and like a wall. "Whoa!" Frisk turned and ran the other way, face already burning from the heat. "But it can't do that!?" she cried as she glanced over her shoulder. Ahead, there was a small tree with arching branches so high up it would have been impossible to vault over, so she turned left, and scurried up the hill. She attempted another left path, but this time she was thrown yet again backwards. There was a path to her right, further up the hill.

Glaring at the empty space, Frisk stood, charged forward. This time, she passed, and then she paused, and looked around. "Am I just crazy or something?" she gawked at what was going on. Through the trees on the other path the fire was dimming. Well, I'll just go back that way… She took a step back, when she felt her shoulder and arm grabbed, and she was flung further up the trail she hadn't taken.

Arms and legs battered and jerked across the dirt and small scattered stones. "Ow…!" Her knees felt awful. Looking around, she still saw no one as she stood, but even still, a hand wrapped around her side and she was picked up from the ground and shoved forward on her feet. "Wha-?!" she stumbled, glancing over her shoulder.

With not much left to do, Frisk started running; and only up further into the twisting paths of the mountain. She could stop and rest for a moment, but if she took too long, she would be thrown forward, but not harshly so she was hurt. If she tried taking any path that led away or down the mountain, she would also find herself thrown back and flung across the floor in a way she'd be skinned by the ground- a few times trees. Eventually, she lost her bag, and it too had disappeared, and when she tried to go back for it, she was also shoved back.

"Where are you taking me?! Let me go home!" she growled, but now she had evidently ticked whoever this phantom was, and she was being thrown and dragged. Eventually, she started running on her own. "Fine! Fine! I'm going! What do you want from me!?"

A grey framework dug into and jutted out of the mountain, carven with intricate images. "Were… these always here?" she studied them, and went on, brushing her hands over the etchings.

Monsters and humans were divided, and one descended amongst them with wings. What was all this supposed to mean? She was shoved forward. "Okay?" she gasped, and kept walking, this time approaching a doorway she recognized. "This is from the book? But- why- why is there an actual door here?!" she was shoved forward again, and she began to scurry down the steps. They cracked and creaked beneath her, even though they were stone. She crept carefully over them, not wanting them to break, although she hurried because she didn't want to be shoved forward for going so slow… but that never happened. She followed the sloping stairs, watching as she made her way down only one side of a bowl like cavern of fair size, maybe 30 feet wide and tall. It circled around a body of clear blue water sparkling with flowers of blue petals and stalks.

The whole place whispered, as though it were some sort of resting ground, and she felt as though it would be wrong to speak, so she remained quiet. and when she reached the base of the stairs, she stepped onto a mossy ground. She stepped carefully between the flowers that were almost as big as she was, aweing at how they sparkled, and how the whisperings seemed to emanate from them. There was a massive crater in the ground in the center of the cavern.

Cautiously, Frisk came towards it, and looked down. It was dark, but there was a light from above that shone down into it, but no light struck the bottom if there was one. Hands pressed on her back, and she was being shoved forward. Her shoes dug at the edge of the crater, and rocks and dirt crumbled into the hole. "H-hey!" she waved her arms to keep from falling. "This isn't even supposed to be real!" she exclaimed on the verge of tears, deep blackness that threatened to swallow her up.

Hands clasped around her shoulders and she was unable to turn and look back. "I thought you wanted an escape from your reality? Don't you want to find your Neverland?"

"Whoa- whoa- wait! I don't want to die!" Frisk shrieked as her shoes slid over the rock, and as she fell, the wind tossed at her hair and clothes. She just kept falling and falling, and the panic of being unattached to the ground for more than a few seconds began to overwhelm her. Soon she was falling so fast, she could barely breathe through all the wind, but she didn't want to hide her face with her hands, because she wanted to be ready to catch whatever she fell into. If she survived. This was nothing like the feeling of swinging, or jumping… this was being swallowed by a vacuum, a hungry maw of darkness and death.

In moments, Frisks' screams deafened her own ears, and she was swallowed by the abyss so that all she could see was darkness, and all she could feel was the sudden catch and jerk of her body as hands caught her once again… and all was quiet, dark, and still.


	7. INTO THE EARTH

INTO THE EARTH

"Oh my child, are you alright?" a distraught voice called above, grass crunched beside Frisk.

"Hmm… Ms. Anne?" Frisk looked up, trying to make out what she was seeing. She looked around, feeling for her glasses. There was yellow everywhere. She squinted. "Huh…?" she reached out, hand pawing at the ground until she found a pair of blue frames… with the glass shattered in them. "Oh no… my glasses…" she trembled. She couldn't see without them, barely even her own hand!

"Oh dear… Can you see without them?" this woman's voice reminded her of Ms. Anne, but Frisk realized that she was not.

"I… I can't…" she squinted, trying to see the face of the woman kneeling beside her. She was helping support Frisks' back. "Ow…" Frisk groaned. "Did I really fall…?" she wondered.

"You must have to have gotten here, my child."

"Freaking invisible jerk! That hurt!" she hissed, as the pain in her arms and legs began to throb as she became more aware of them.

"You were forced here?" the woman sounded angry. "Who would do such a thing to a child?!"

"A lot of people…" Frisk sighed, brushing at the hair in her face. She was sitting cross-legged now. "Wh… who are you?"

"My name is Toriel. I am the caretaker of these ruins." Her voice… sounded like it was smiling.

Frisks' head pounded. "Oh… Nice to meet you… kind of… my name is Frisk. Do you know how long I've been here?" Words were a bit hard to form at the moment.

"I wish we had met under better circumstances as well… Frisk. And no, I only just arrived."

"What time is it?" she looked for her backpack, but it wasn't there. "Right… he stole it… wait…" she reached for her pocket, but realized her phone wasn't there either. "Agh…" she groaned. "I need to get home… my dads' probably worried sick… Ms. Anne is probably in a panic… she took me to the park and she left to get snacks, and then I was chased by some idiots and then someone else chased and threw me until I ended up here…"

Toriel was tense, but her words were soft and kind. "I am sorry you've been treated so poorly… If you wish, I can treat your wounds to help you heal. I am a stranger, but… I would like to help you. Many others here will not be as kind as I… without your glasses, it may be even harder for you to find your way around."

"Yeah…"

"If I can find all the pieces, I may be able to fix them for you."

"Wh- really?"

"Yes." She picked through the flowers beneath me, and scooped up the pieces. She slipped them into the pocket in her dress. "There." She held out a hand. "Stay close to me, and I will keep you safe."

"Where are we going?" Frisk said as she accepted the woman's hand- and faltered. "Who- your hand-?!" she exclaimed as she stood up right and took a step back.

"Frisk… you really can't see me all that well, can you?" the woman was quite tall, and big. Her skin was almost a snow white, and almost fluffy. As her hand had felt- save for the calluses that felt like a dogs' paws on the underside of her palms.

"N-no, but why is your hand…?" she slumped and gaped as realization was dawning on her.

Toriel was silent for a moment, "You will not see many familiar faces here, Frisk. We are not like those above."

"Your… your all really entirely different from us? Are you really monsters?"

"We are not human, Frisk. None of us down here are…"

"Is that why you were all trapped down here? Because you were different?" Frisk's voice faded off. "I'm… sorry I just… uhm… I read about you in a story… and… that story kind of got me here because I was so… interested in it."

"There were many reasons for our being trapped here…" Toriel said with a sigh. "Do you believe we are down here because were bad people?"

Frisk thought for a moment, and looked around, up at the cavernous black walls and the white pillars that rose up above them. She had to squint hard to see them. Looking at Toriel, she could interpret a lioness with a goat like appearance. She was wearing a purple dress. "I'm not a bad person… and I was forced down here because of mean people that were my own species…" she shrugged. "Maybe you were bullied too. I don't know… You don't seem like a bad person. But I don't know if I can really trust you, either. Not too many strangers have ever been nice to me."

"Well allow me to be one of the nice ones." Toriel laughed. "I promise, I mean you no harm… I come here every day to see if anyone fell… and I take care of those who do fall. Come on, I'll fix up these glasses for you when we get to my home."

Frisk sighed. "Thank you…" she took the woman's hand, and with her help, was able to stand and follow.

…

"Frisk, which do you like more: butterscotch or cinnamon?" Toriel said, setting a clean towel on top of clean clothes on the lid of a basket.

"Uhm… Cinnamon? Why?"

Toriel flashed a grin at her as she closed the door. "You'll see once you finish."

"Okay?" Frisk stared at the door in confusion, then at the pile of clothes neatly folded with the towel. She had children's clothes already? Children had fallen down here before…? Yes… that was right… she'd read about it in her book. They'd never come back… and… she didn't see any children on the way, or here. The idea sunk in. What if this woman was the one who had thrown her in here? No… something about that didn't seem right. But had she something to do with the other children never returning?

Frisk tested the water in the shower, and found it was warm. After shedding the rest of her clothes, jumped in and washed off all the grime that had plastered itself to her skin after all the rolling in the dirt she'd been forced to do… there were so many cuts and bruises. Some were still even bleeding slightly. Her gut twisted at the thought of who or what had thrown her all the way up the mountain.

The cuts burned in the warm water, but it still felt good. There were bars of soap, but she didn't see any stamp, or labels. There was a lavender washrag on the handle of the shower door, and she used that. The soap stung her cuts, but she forced herself to scrub them until the dirt that had gotten inside was gone. There were so many on her knees and elbows… There were even cuts on her sides. She felt bruises on her right side… the side she'd fallen on. And there were four thin, long lines of bruises that crossed her side and her forearm where it seemed something or someone had caught her…

Her mind kept going back to the feeling of invisible hands grabbing her and being thrown. The blue flowers, and… then the voice behind her that had asked her if she'd wanted to leave her reality. Who in the world was he? He was a he, invisible, had cold hands and apparently had the strength to throw her across the room. Well, that gave her some sort of clue at least it narrowed things down to about oh 80% maybe- nah, maybe 90%. Yeah. She only had to track him down and give him a very well thought out argument about how she did NOT want to leave her reality because she did not like being thrown into giant holes in the ground… although… as long as the lioness wasn't going to eat her, maybe it wasn't all that bad. Although her glasses had smashed, and she had cuts everywhere…

"AGH." She silenced her thoughts, and tried to focus on something. "I need to find a phone… call dad…" she froze. "They were locked away… no one knows about these people, and they haven't been above ground in… well, it was about 300 years or so after the supposed seal… if they never get out, why does this place seem modern enough…? Do they have a way of getting out? Or do they just sustain themselves? Agh. I'm doing it again…"

When she was done, she jumped out, dried off with a fluffy white towel, and then reached for the clothes. They smelt like flowers. The pants were plain jeans, while the shirt was a long sleeve, soft, warm material. It was purple with pink embroidery in strange symbols. She couldn't read them, but she could recognize them as text she'd seen pictures of in her book. As far as she knew, they hadn't been deciphered. But did Toriel know? Once she was wearing the shirt and looking down at it, she wondered if Toriel had made the shirt. There wasn't a tag on it…

Taking a deep breath, Frisk reached for the door handle, and stepped out into the hallway. Her pants rubbed painfully at her raw knees, and she walked stiffly across the carpet. Where could she really go? There was a left and a right… but everything was a blur. She stumbled, following a scent in the air that smelled vaguely of cinnamon. Her hand found a doorframe, and the smell was stronger.

"Frisk?" Toriel called, and a white and purple blur emerged in a doorway across the room. "Oh! Those look so good on you! Wait till you can see yourself better in them!"

"Thank you for the clothes! Uhm, kinda surprised they fit…"

"I'm glad they do!"

Frisk paused, and then asked: "What do the symbols mean? I saw them in pictures, but it's not been deciphered yet on the surface."

"Really? How odd. Seems they really did abandon and hide everything…" Toriel muttered. "It means Hope." She said pleasantly.

"There's like… five letters and a half! It's like divided in the middle… That looks so cool! Like its Elvish or something…"

"Elvish?"

"So there aren't elves and dwarves in the underground?"

Toriel laughed. "I don't believe so."

"Uhm… is there someplace I can sit down? Is… that a table?"

"Just a moment! We still need to get those wounds patched up, now that you've cleaned them… at least, I hope you cleaned them well enough…" Toriel crossed the room, and soon Frisk found herself being guided back to the bathroom and sat onto the toilet lid. Her knees burned being bent, and she straightened them out. "Ow…"

"Where are you hurt? You might need to take off those jeans… Oh, on your side too?" Toriel gave a cry of dismay. "Take everything off." She waved a hand.

"I rolled a lot when I got thrown around into all the rocks… so it's probably all over… I ache all over, at least."

"Your back… those bruises!" Toriel panicked. "Oh, your poor child... If I ever find who did this to you…" her voice faded, and she knelt beside Frisk with gauze and some containers. "This is likely to sting. But it will heal. You're going to be stilts for days… But you have to bed your legs."

"I know… it will heal weird." Frisk sighed.

Toriel rubbed over the wounds with a white cotton ball, and Frisk cringed. You got out a lot of the dirt…" she sighed. "You know how to take care of them…"

"I've had practice…" Frisk said gloomily.

"What a strange mark on your hand." Toriel reached for Frisks' right hand. "I don't know that there's much I can do for that…"

"Oh… that's a shoe… it'll go away… it's just a bruise. Some moron dropped my book in the dirt, stomped my hand when I reached for it…" she was surprised to feel tears at her eyes. It's not like it was anything new.

Toriel carefully wrapped around the gauze and tore off some tape with her claws. She was silent. "No one has ever stopped them?"

Frisk shook her head. "Everyone's… too busy… and there are too many idiots to contain…" she laughed, but there were tears beginning to choke her. "And of course I can't do anything about it… I'm just a little twig. I'm 13, and I'm still too weak and small to do anything about it… I don't know how to fight back… not that I want to, but I don't like being punched in the face."

"Sometimes all you need is good reflexes to dodge and a good pair of legs." Toriel said firmly. "And sometimes something witty to help trick your way out of things."

"Well, I can run…" Frisk nodded, wiping her eyes. "But that got me here…"

"I could teach you to defend yourself. Would you like that?"

"You'd do that for me?" Frisk brightened. "But… I should be getting home soon…" she said gloomily. "I miss my dad… I missed our show… he was going to make spaghetti too… I may not like my world at times, but I do love spending time with my dad when he has time to spend…"

Toriel went on bandaging, and was soon working on Frisks arms and sides. "You're going to look like a mummy soon."

Frisk giggled, and added shyly, "Thank you for helping me..."

"You are very welcome, Frisk…" Toriel said gently.


	8. YOU EXPECTED SOMEONE ELSE?

MUMMY MONSTER… YOU EXPECTED SOMEONE ELSE?

When Toriel had finished bandaging Frisk's wounds, she led her back into the living room, and sat her down at a table. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a plate and an orange blob and a metal thing. The smell of cinnamon was mouthwatering, and soon Frisk was scarfing down the pie.

"This is beautiful." Frisk sighed in awe.

"You eat that, and meanwhile, I'll see what I can do about your glasses…" Toriel set to work while Frisk nibbled at her pie, still cautious about whether or not it would poison her or something, but Toriel was fixing her glasses… why would she hurt her if she were doing that? Frisk squinted to see Toriel holding the pieces in her right hand, while in her left she had some sort of blaring light baring down on them. Though Frisk couldn't tell whether or not she had any sort of tool… she hadn't seen her grab one.

"How… are you going to fix glass?"

Toriel laughed. "Oh, you'll see once you put your glasses on."

Frowning, Frisk nibbled on more cinnamon pie.

"Just a moment…" there was a crack, and she gasped, "Oh! Uhm… let me try that again… I've done this before… goodness, this is such a thick prescription… Uhm- don't watch, you might ruin your eyes worse."

Frisk turned away, picking at the carpet beneath her.

Moments later, Toriel gave an "Ah!" of triumph. "I think that's clear enough… yes, smooth as well… and now I can just… There!" something clicked into place, and Frisk spun around to look up at Toriel's blur, and the faint blue. Toriel was fanning the blue, and blowing at it; it was steaming. "It wouldn't be good to put them on right now; they are still quite hot.

"Oh…" Frisk sat back down, disappointed. She looked around, spying the blob on the platter that was evidently cinnamon pie. She began to wolf some of that down. _I'm so hungry…_

"So you read, Frisk?" Toriel said with a smile in her voice.

Frisk looked back at Toriel's blur. "Yeah…" she grinned. "I like to read a lot of fantasy… but I've recently gotten into researching the mysteries of the world because some of them are fantasy enough, and it's exciting that the world can have impossible things!"

"Don't you know everything is impossible?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's only impossible until you've experienced it."

Frisk was silent for a moment. "Huh. I did fall down a sort of rabbit hole," Frisk laughed. "But if I just suddenly find out I'm dreaming and I wake up…" she made a face. "I don't feel like I'm asleep though. I'm so aware of everything. And dream time feels quick and short. This is taking forever."

"Sorry about the glasses."

"Oh, I didn't mean that! I mean- uhm, the… pie is really good!" Frisk stuffed more pie into her face. "All… good things… come in good time?" Frisk made it sound like a question.

"Yes they do." There was a grin in Toriel's voice.

"So… uhm… why do you ask about me reading?"

"I… I think you will find a few books here you might like." Toriel held out a blue blur to her, and Frisk reached for the blue, and eagerly took the glasses that were held out to her, and slipped them over her nose, over her ears. Hesitantly, she looked up at Toriel, taking in the sight of the monstrous lioness in a purple dress. She was white furred, and almost even looked like a goat for the floppy ears, and some lines of her head. But her eyes, nose and mouth, hands, feet, and tail, and fur were especially fluffy and lion like.

Frisk just stared. "I thought monsters were supposed to be ugly," Frisk shook her head, "Humans have crazy imaginations, huh?"

"It goes for any who might fear what they do not understand, yes." Toriel smiled, and pointed to her left. Frisk followed the claw, and saw a massive book shelf filled to the brim with books. Frisk brightened, scooting forward, and scanning over the titles. She began sliding books out of the shelf, one after the other, sliding them back and glancing at the descriptions and titles. "Botany? This is a lot of survival stuff. Whoa… I've never seen these kinds of plants before…" she flipped through the pages, scanning, pausing, gawking at a few oddly spiked things. "Whoa that looks dangerous."

"Many things here truly are monstrous…" Toriel looked apologetic.

"I'll just make a note to avoid that," Frisk laughed. "Oh, is there anything on blue flowers in here?"

"Blue flowers?" Toriel leaned forward, tilting her head curiously.

"Yeah, there were some over the cavern I fell into… Well, it was like there was a mountain, and then a secret tunnel… weird thing is the tunnel in pictures was just a blank wall, but then when I saw it, it just opened up to this big circular cavern with water and blue flowers and this stair case and this crater hole in the middle which I got shoved into… uhm… the flowers seemed to be talking too…"

"Did the flowers push you?"

"Oh… no. I don't think so. This someone was pushing me and throwing me all the way up the mountain…" she shivered. "I don't know why they did…"

"The flowers are called echo flowers. They record voices and replay them."

"Like certain birds! Cool!"

"I've read about those… but what worries me Frisk is that someone knew where to take you and purposefully threw you down here."

Frisk sighed. "Yeah… Weird thing is, I couldn't see them. Ever. I would run right at them, well- where- after I'd get picked up and thrown… those marks on my shirt- that's where those came from."

"Those black marks?" Toriel frowned.

"Yep. They'd pick me up and throw me, and I'd run back where they'd thrown me from, there'd be absolutely no one standing there-" frisk paused and held up a hand, "I was wearing my glasses. The first way I noticed their presence, someone picked me up when I fell, but when I looked to see who held my hand, no one was there. And my book disappeared. And I couldn't hear them even though there were leaves everywhere."

Toriel nodded slowly, brows furrowed.

"Do you think it was someone from here?" Frisk asked cautiously.

Toriel shook her head. "That's strange… no one can…" her voice trailed off.

"No one can what?" Frisk looked confused.

Toriel was silent, but then looked at Frisk and her gaze softened. "Do you feel like they are still following you?"

"Uhm… I don't know… before I knew and saw I was alone, but it felt like I wasn't. But now I see you here, so I don't really know… But it's scary, cause I don't… well, I can't even see them." She slouched and looked down at the book on her lap. Her glasses slid down the bridge of her nose. "I don't know if they'll let me leave either… and that scares me more… Mrs. Lauren and dad are probably terrified… they don't know where I am, and… well, they knew I was in the park, and I'm sure there will be people looking for me but… tch… I hope those bullies get in trouble…" she began to mumble.

"I hope I don't scare you, Frisk…" Toriel was looking down at her hands when Frisk looked up at her.

"No… your hands are soft. This other person, whoever they were, they were really cold and… kinda… sharp. They weren't fluffy at all." She managed a chuckle. "You have claws, but you never cut me when you were helping me. And you made me pie, and I'm not dead yet, so…" Frisk shrugged. "Why would you heal me and then feed me and then fix my glasses? If you were any smart evil monster, you would have lured me into the oven before I could see and take advantage of that. But you didn't." she smiled.

Toriel smiled back. "Thank you, Frisk."

"But… you said you watched for other people who fell down here?"

Toriel nodded, as though waiting now for the question to hit. So she'd heard it before.

"Well… I don't see anyone… so… do you know a way back to the surface? I read that it happened once where someone from here went to the surface with a human, but its written that it only happened once…"

Toriel's face was downcast. "Excuse me… for a moment…" she stood, and her paws thudded across the floor.

Frisk watched her leave, and she looked at the book in her hand, thinking. Why had Toriel looked so sad? Curious, Frisk set the book back on the shelf, stood, and went to look for Toriel. She was nowhere to be seen. Across from here was a set of closed doors on the left, and a dead end with a mirror… various potted plants along the way- hey! She saw these in the book! Water sausages!

Quietly, Frisk wandered down the hall and tested some of the doors. There was a child's room. It looked very clean, and there were pictures of children in frames. And… a miniature Toriel. No, it was a little lion man. A lion man! Just like in the story she had read! That was so cool. She stared at the picture for a moment, and as she looked left and right at the beds, and the toys neatly put away, she began to wonder where they were… it seemed as though they had been here a while.

Turning, Frisk quietly left the room and checked the other ones. One was apparently Toriel's. She kept the rooms so clean! But there was a journal on her desk. Of all things… there were jokes in it. She looked away, feeling awkward for having spied. She went to the next room, but it was locked. She did however approach the mirror. She gawked at herself; there were bandages all over her, and it made her laugh. "I guess I really do look like a mummy."

All of a sudden the chill of cold hands brushed her arms, and she stopped laughing and stared at the mirror. The cold hands dug into her shoulders, and Frisk saw something above her reflection…

YOU EXPECTED TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE?

"Whoa!" she shook away from the cold hands and hurried back down the hallway, holding her arms. The cold tapped her left arm, and suddenly she was thrown back and hit a wall. She fell, seeing a guard rail soar up past her eyes, and she was falling through the floor! She tumbled and rolled and then caught herself on a ledge. Dizzily, she saw she had been tumbling down a flight of stairs. But everything was blurry… her glasses had been knocked off her face! Desperately, Frisk searched for them, squinting her eyes to get the slightest bit of detail or color, but just couldn't find them.

Another cold hand grabbed her leg and tossed it aside. She rolled more, caught herself, and hastily got to her feet, jumped down the rest of the stairs, and slammed into another wall. "I'm going!" she gasped as she stumbled away, scanning the ground for her glasses. "Stop doing that!" she detected blue frames on the last stair, grabbed for them, and backed away onto even ground. No more stairs.

Frisk tested her glasses to look over the stairs. She wilted in dismay. "Toriel just fixed these…" There was a long thin crack on the lenses again, messing up her vision. Even without seeing well, Frisk understood enough that she would not see the monster from the mirror.

Hesitating, Frisk curled her glasses into a fist. Shaking, she turned to face the long hallway, and squinted. It was so long and dimly lit that it narrowed into a wall of darkness. There was a dull breeze whispering past her ears and leaving a frigid sting in her fingers.

The icy fingers dug into Frisks' back as they shoved her forward a few steps. Frisk began to shuffle onward carefully and slow. Apparently shuffling wasn't fast enough for the cold handed phantom, however… and so, after Frisk felt claws scraping skin from her back, her legs found the motivation to charge into the dark at full speed.


	9. WHAT IS FORGOTTEN IS ABANDONED

9 WHAT IS FORGOTTEN IS ABANDONED

Toriel's back was turned to Frisk, her tall body flickering in the firelight from the torches. A wall rose up before her so high it vanished into the darkness hanging like a cloud above the light.

"Within these ruins holds no way to return to the surface…" Toriel said, with her back turned from Frisk. "The only other way… lies beyond these doors."

Frisk was silent, fingers numb and freezing. It felt as though someone were leering over her shoulder. "Ms. Toriel…?"

"I understand… if you want to go home. If you must… then I will let you pass through these doors. But please…" The lion woman shifted slowly and faced Frisk with a sharp look to her eyes, the fires from the torches almost burning within them. "The world of monsters is a dangerous place for a human."

It took a moment for Frisk to summon her voice. Sound was so much louder in these halls, though, and speaking normally was almost shouting. "Not all of them… are as nice as you are?"

Toriel shook her head side to side, "That isn't the case… you see, there is a barrier, a wall between our worlds that is far stronger than the stone that surrounds us." She waved a hand at the dark, cold walls. "It is a powerful magic set here to seal us away, and keep us divided from humanity."

"Magic?" Frisk found disbelief stirring within her, but at this point it seemed stupid to have such doubts. Of course magic existed. She'd been tossed around by an invisible monster, scraped and cut by nothing, and now she was talking to a lion woman wearing a purple dress walking on her hind legs. So Frisk had nothing to argue. "I take it there isn't a staircase that will take me back to the surface?" she said gloomily.

Toriel's shoulders hunched. "I'm afraid there isn't… you see, this world… is very much cut away from your own. However, there is a part of the barrier that serves as a sort of door… but you need to have the right keys to "unlock" it. Human and monster souls. But that door, that gateway dwells beyond the castle. And to get there, you will need to pass through the homes of many monsters. Unless you can defend yourself, or be a monster yourself, you will surely be attacked. Considering the idea that any of them are well learned and actually know what a human looks like…"

"So why will they attack me again? Is it because humans sealed them away?"

Toriel closed her eyes and hung her head. "While many monsters are happy with their homes here… many more wish to leave this… this underworld. They wish to break the barrier, for everyone to be able to pass through it should they wish." Clasping her hands together, she raised her head, and there was a sadness just barely visible through the almost absent look on her face. "For monsters to break the barrier, however… they must have 7 human souls. They possess all but the 7th at this time. And if they know the 7th human is amongst them… Frisk, they will kill to get their hands on your soul. For it will mean their time in the Underground is over."

A tap echoed through the hall as Frisk took a step back. "I'm the 7th human that's fallen down here?" her voice trembled. "Uhm… but… so it doesn't matter… if I don't try to fight back? Even if I wouldn't hurt them?"

Toriel grimly replied, "Even if you are a child… you will be spared no mercy."

"You- you acted like- like there was a chance I could actually make it to the castle though? If I did fight? H-how do I do that?" Frisk's voice shouted desperately.

Toriel looked away. "It is either you or them. They take your soul, or you take theirs. You only need a monsters soul to pass through by yourself, if you are to cross the barrier without breaking it and letting monsters flood into your world."

"I… need to kill someone?" she said breathlessly, tearing at her hair. "Why… why was I taken here?" she frowned suddenly, something clicking into place. "You said no monsters can cross the barrier without a human soul…?"

"Yes?" Toriel tilted her head to the side, frowning. "What is it?"

"The one who brought me here… they had a human soul." She said quietly, scratching at her head, twisting her hair.

"The invisible one?" Toriel's eyes and voice sharpened. "Are those your glasses?"

Frisk nodded slowly. "He threw me down the stairs to get me to come here, and they broke… He won't let me go back."

Toriel stiffened, and something dangerous flickered behind her eyes. "He brought you here to make you the 7th…" she was silent for a moment, eyes darting left and right, and then she focused on Frisk, no- perhaps a bit above her… "Frisk, run!"

Before Frisk had the chance to blink, a heavy force slammed behind her, flinging her away to stumble into the arms of yet another invisible monster. "Hey!" Frisk was held back as blindingly hot white fire engulfed the hall, and a figure shape in fire scrambled through the flames, wailing in terror.

"I will not let them take you beyond these doors! The fate of your world depends on it!" Toriel turned to see Frisk being carried by yet another monster, eyes like white hot flames. She extended a hand towards the monster holding Frisk, and the flames surrounded and shot towards them. Closing her eyes, Frisk waited for the flames to attack, but she didn't feel them. Instead, the monster behind her began to wail, and dragged her away, flaming. Yet Frisk wasn't burning.

"Leave her alone!" Toriel's voice roared, making even Frisk tremble in fear. The monster's grip was loosening, and Frisk jerked away from them, turning to see the creature only now visible in shape because of the fire. They stood a head taller than Frisk, and were thin, only a small layer of skin was stretched over their bones. Their eyes were wide, their jaw dropped in a wail of pain. Their eyes were locked on Frisk, and they were reaching for her again, even through the pain.

"What are you trying to do?" Frisk stammered, backing away.

Toriel was beside her, putting a hand on the monster and setting her claws around its throat. The fires consuming it dimmed, but it was still in pain and consumed with panic. "If you don't wish to join your friend, please, enlighten Frisk and I as to who you were taking her to." Every word Toriel spoke dripped with carefully measured malice.

Frisk couldn't stop staring at the mad snarl of very massive incisors between Toriel's jaws, and the muscles that quivered beneath her quilling fur. While the lioness was doing this to protect Frisk, it was none the less frightening. Frisk found herself backing away from Toriel and the monster.

The monster only hissed, clawing at Toriel's arm. "

Toriel glowered. "You can't talk, can you?"

The monster hissed again, and this time suddenly jerked and lashed out with claws at Toriels' face. She took the blow, but kept her hold on the creature and caught its arm. But then its legs began thrashing and it snapped and flailed violently.

If there was a moment that all the air, time, and the flames froze, it was then when a calm, yet malevolent voice called from the depths of the tunnel: "You are so cruel to your own kind, dear Queen… we are only desperate to be free from the humans curse…"

Toriel looked into the tunnel, and Frisk followed her gaze, stifling a gasp. The man from the mirror strode out of the darkness, the flames of the torches flickering out two by two upon his passing. Narrow stars from the hollows of his eyes glared down at Toriel. "Why do you resist? Is freedom not what we all want?"

The new energy that had overcome Toriel was calm, but a strange tense focus in her movement prowled as she stood and regarded the approaching pale figure wrapped in darkness. "We can survive in this place without the oppression of humans, and without senseless war to bring upon the earth! Without their prejudice! And you... you would sacrifice another child?" her words were like sparks in the fiery maw of a dragon.

"Do you presume I cannot? The oppression still exists! We live without the benefits of the surface, and it is killing monsters! Do you understand how many monsters lives could be saved if we only had access to certain plants? Would you sacrifice hundreds of monsters, for the sake of this single human?" The inky darkness of the man's robes seemed to infect the air… The white fires moved back to surround Toriel and Frisk behind her like a shield.

"You should have surrendered to the core's flames long ago! I will finish what it could not!" the fire consumed the man in black.

Through the crackling of the angry fumes, there was a chuckling, and the man parted the flames as he walked through, and he was smiling, his eyes dangerously narrow, like the single shaft of light in a black hole. "Oh, dear Queen... you did succeed. Nothing remains of me in this world to be burned."

Jerking in alarm, Toriel stepped back, and held out a protective arm to Frisk. Before she could, the monster she had been holding down leapt up and hooked its arms around Frisk and dragged her away, hissing. "Frisk!" the despair in her eyes made Frisk cry out in fear.

"Toriel…" the skeletal monster towered nearer to the lion woman, and she met his gaze, desperate flames burning in the palms of her hands. "Calm your fires… and step aside." He looked amused, but there was a snarling to the way his eyes flashed. Go back to your little home… Let me save all the monsters you left behind."

A growl rumbled warningly from Toriel's chest. "Gaster… What has become of you?"

The man shrugged, the smile still twisting cruelly over his skull. "Nothing anyone will remember." The dark overwhelmed the fires, and suddenly they were gone. A blinding flash of white light revealed Toriel withering forward, engulfed in black flames. She gave a woeful cry before collapsing, disappearing into a deadly embrace of darkness.

"Toriel!" Frisk fought and squirmed, but now the world had faded and gone black, and she couldn't see where to go or what to do. Every few seconds there was a dim flash of white, and she would see the vague silhouette of the skeleton man standing over the fallen monster. The room was suddenly so impossibly dark, and the only lights that remained were the two stars of the shadow man's eyes turning to look upon the quivering human in her frail captors arms.

"Frisk…" the name was spoken like it were a drop in still water that began to ripple, echoing through the dark almost deafeningly.

Her vision was blurry, blinded by darkness, but now crept a similar feeling upon her own thoughts. A blinding of fear and confusion, and she couldn't be sure whether she might be dreaming or truly awake. Here there was only true darkness, the rapid pulsing of fear in her chest, the hastiness of her breath gasping for air. Was there something covering her nose and mouth? Why was it so hard to breathe? It was like she was drifting across violent waves on water… swaying up and sliding down, sinking, and resurfacing…

"You are so alone… in a world far different from your own. Without a means to understanding what it truly means to be amongst the monsters who were locked away here… and the hatred they possess for your kind. How will you ever defend yourself… when Toriel was unable to keep her promise of training you?"

Unable to find the strength to form words, Frisk just looked left and right in the darkness. But only with her eyes. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Her nerves racked with fear so much she could barely think straight!

"But hers would be a fruitless effort anyways… even if you became strong, without magic all your efforts would amount to nothing." The voice held its breath for a moment, and then said with a sigh, "You poor creature… your eyes are so dull, but they have such a beautiful color. Hmm… well… it doesn't matter; the eyes are only a gateway, and while yours are quite foggy, they do not hinder my plans."

Cold hands and something sharp pried at Frisks' eyes, something catching her upper and lower eyelid, and still she could see nothing. The sharp thing suddenly cut to the side of her right eye, and she cried out, but her voice was muffled.

"You are in pain. I apologize… I have no pain killers. And for things like these, the patient must be awake." A red light emerged from the left of her vision in the pliers of a hand holding them, and Frisk was able to dimly see a hazy blur of the monsters skull like face. The red moved closer to her right eye, until it consumed her vision, and was suddenly unmistakably under the surface of her eye! A searing heat came from the red, and her head began to pound dizzyingly. "There, there… almost done. You will have your magic yet…"


	10. DONT LEAVE ME HANGING

10 DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING

There was something desolate about the snow today… the snow was a few inches deeper, the wind gusts were like lances, and the air was so thick with flurries, it was nearly impossible to see.

Good thing that there was more than one way to get through a snow storm than simply walking. With a final crunch of snow under the flop of a slipper, the air charged with an ecstatic blue energy that surged and bounced and whirled from tree to tree, stone to stone, between the tall and gloomy trees. Normally a casual and fun thing, the blue lights dance this early morning twitched with an intense focus.

"Somethings changed… I can feel it in my bones!"

A swift lunge up a stone, and the flip over a ledge, and the blue disappeared as a bird closes its wings from flight over the treeless platform. "Huff… huff…" breath wasn't easy for one who had traveled miles in so few seconds, but there was no time to catch breath. Not when you didn't even really have lungs.

"Okay… okay, where are you?" his voice shivered and clicked, his jacket rustling over hunched, creaking, rattling limbs. "H-hey… knock knock?" His pale bony hands clawed at the blue folds of his jacket. A short silence passed, "Heh… don't leave me hanging. Old lady? You there?"

The enormity of the dark purple doors was blurred due to the heavy snow fall, but the loneliness of them was even greater today, even… absent. "No…" with a desperate jump, he threw himself at the colossal doors, clawing at the rippling, sparking magic that traced up and down the surface. The fury of it was like fireworks to his touch.

"Urgh! Let me in for once!" he held to the door and its magic, his own blue stirring into a flickering wave. "I just want to know!" His slippers fell away, his claws sank into the snow, and found icy ground. Lightening crackled, and a force like an opposing magnet began to build between him and the door. "Are you okay?!" he protested against the wave shoving him back. "Old lady!"

The magic of the door arced, wove dizzying quick circles encompassing three triangles, and crossed wings. With a final hiss and threatening crackle, a boom of energy tore the monster's claws from the door, and he went tossing through the air back over the ledge, rolling across the path below.

"Ugh…" lanky limbs sank into the snow as he stood himself up, and dusted snow from his shoulders with a few deft flick of his thin hands. Squinting, he spied the doors magic already setting to rest. Beside him was the trench of snow he'd created… and beside them… a trail of shoe prints, just a little smaller than his own, fading away under new snow.

"Those aren't mine." Scrambling, he followed after them, but they soon disappeared completely. Focusing on the stretch of white between the long winding path of trees, he took a deep breath and set forward, barefoot, walking at a stiff pace, steadily gaining speed. "What sort of soul do you have, new kid?" his arms and legs were pumping now, and he was charging through the forest. "Are you an Angel, or a Demon?"

With a leap and a surge of blue, the monster disappeared with a violent neon streak that bolted straight over the path and into the unseen oblivion between light and time. A woeful wind and a thunder crack tore through the forest with such great force the winds and snow followed, swinging even the trees low. On the path, all traces of footprints were entirely obliterated by new snow, all save for the barely visible pink fluff at the foot of the great doors. Even so, the snow would erase them soon…


	11. SO HERES YOUR QUESTION KID

Kotv 11 SO HERES YOUR QUESTION KID

"Ow! Would you stop pinching me?! I'm not doing anything!" Frisk cried.

"Exactly. You will be buried and freeze if you stop now."

"What do you care? Why am I here?" she snapped at the air.

"To get through the storm." The voice answered with a drawl.

"I don't understand… do you people just want to torture me?" Frisk received no answer, and squinted to see beside her where she sensed the voice. Snow shuffled beside her, and caved in to the shape of bare foot. Just barely seen because of the haze of snow, was a faint form tall, thin, and transparent. Snow caught around their shoulders and head, and on their eyes and nose. but they remained, save for outline and foot prints, invisible. Two white blurs of eyes scowled at her. "There is no looking back."

the being grabbed Frisk, (who was still baffled and in a daze,) by the shoulder to spin Frisk her forward and give her another shove through the snow. Her sudden momentum nearly tripped her into the snow, but she caught herself before she did.

"F-fine," she set her eyes ahead of her, squinting and trying to see signs of shelter beyond the thick sheets of snow. She was greeted with no comfort, for there was nothing more to see than an endless plain of white with the occasional tree and bush. No hills, no caves… no buildings.

Sniffling, wiping her red, and numb nose, Frisk trudged onward through the knee high snow, clinging to her the thin fabric wrapped about her sides. She so missed the fire in Toriel's home… but… she doubted she would ever see it again. Right now, in all this cold, she wondered she would ever feel the warmth of a fire place again. Was it impossible to get out of all this snow?

But why else was this ghost monster here? To keep her moving, from falling asleep, acting as though she had a destination. And she must… why else was she alive still? She had been chased in a thunderous wind storm, dropped into a hole in the ground that… how tall was it? In any case, it was so high she probably shouldn't have lived. She had even met a lion monster! But that was beside the point… Toriel didn't have anything to do with Frisk's unfortunate luck, but these ghosts did. That's right. That shadow man, and those he was with had hurt Toriel badly. But the worst they had done to Frisk was make her fall.

It was hard not to yawn, and just keep her legs moving. Frisk stumbled, but a clawed hand caught and dug under her arm jolting her awake. "Ah?!" Frisk jumped back, facing the monster but still moving in the direction it wanted. She turned around, cradling her stinging arm. Her legs were able to move her a while longer, but eventually they would slow, and she would get another sort of scratch from the ghost.

Shuffling freezing and numb feet through knee high snow, with daggers that would press into her back to keep moving, Frisk kept her eyes forward. Her thoughts were being overwhelmed by the urgency to get her blood pumping, to get some heat; moving her hands over her arms, and taking thorough deep breaths. As this technique began to fail in its purpose, and Frisks skin became more numb, and her movements even more slow, the panic mingled with cold caused her to shiver violently.

 _I'm so tired…_

Eyes fluttering, Frisk clapped her hands over her face to keep herself awake.

… _I want to sleep…_

Again, Frisk raised her hands to clap her face, but now there was no speed to her movement to pack any sting.

 _I just want to fall…_

The ghost beside her held her upper arm, claws digging into it, but Frisk's skin was so numb, she couldn't feel it. Again, Frisk turned her gaze to see the ghost striding beside her, seemingly unphased by the unforgiving snow.

 _Where are you taking me?_

Time slowed as her mind flashed through dark memories, the last moments she had spent with Toriel in the ruins, from the moment Toriel found her, bandaged her wounds, fed her sweet food, fixed her glasses… to the moments the shadows broke them, bruised her again, and consumed Toriel in darkness.

The scorn and hate that flickered in her heart was enough to set her heart beating faster again, for her blood to start pumping again. She felt warmth, but she also felt something else. Something… cautious, scared, alert, fast… a menagerie of overwhelming, confused emotions projected on her. Frisk knew them not to be her own emotions.

Suddenly, wanting to listen, Frisk stopped moving, and turned to look back. Her eyes were locked on something in the distance, and she couldn't see it yet, but she could feel someone tearing through the forest.

There was a voice calling over the howling of the storm, that seized their attention.

There you are.

Frisk reeled back. The feeling was unmistakable. Whoever he was, he was looking straight at her. They were unseen, but Frisk could feel his rapacious eyes boring into her, seizing her attention with a jolt through her that paralyzed her with fear. There was no way what she had heard was real, because it wasn't even a sound she had heard with her ears. It was like a thought that wasn't her own. Frisk's mind kept whirling, but she was staring at the back of a transparent monster ghost, facing the forest, tense and still like game that had just realized the hunter was near. To fight or to bolt?

So tell me, new kid… With determination that could slice steel in two, he said: _Are you an Angel or a Demon?_

The question carried a unvoiced threat that chilled Frisk to the bone.

"Hide. Now!" the ghost shoved Frisk, and shattered the paralysis icing her over.

Without a second glance, Frisk turned and with new adrenaline almost flew over the snow, and kept going until she found a bush and slid under crackling and chittering ice soaked twigs and huddled at the muddy wet ground beneath it. Thick green quills poked at her face, but kept her hidden well enough with the piles of snow caked up over it, but not so much that she couldn't see through the gaps herself. The ghost was standing firm, tense, bracing himself.

Her breath came in ragged breaths that she tried frantically to calm and hide with her hands. _Not a sound… not a sound…_ Her panicked thoughts chanted in time to her thundering pulse.

Her eyes were locked on the ghost, and suddenly the snow was parting, like waves scattering around a surf board. There was nothing there, but the ghost was stepping back, and then there was a skeleton in a blue jacket and jogging shorts, in midair, above the ghost, a fist raised over his shoulder, ready to come down on the ghosts head. The ghost was in the process of crossing his arms to shield himself.

The skeleton's fist had barely met home when there was a cracking boom, and a wind that was so savage it scraped the snow from the trees and bushes so that the individual snow flakes stung brushing by. Frisk crossed her arms to shield herself, while the snow and the quills from the bush rushed at her, tearing at her clothes and skin.

When the stings of the wind, snow, and tree quills faded, Frisk peaked over her arms, seeing her clothes slashed and skin bleeding between the fabric. Wherever her skin stung from the cold more than others, she knew she'd been cut. Before her, the ground, bushes, and surrounding trees were all scraped bare of snow… there were tracks in the dirt, that led backwards some 3 yards where the skeleton and the ghost were locked in combat.

The skeleton moved like he was made of air, and packed punches that could have weighed tons. He jumped high, leapt far, moving like a blur, throwing punches and whirling kicks at the ghost that made him stagger. It sounded like the crack of a bat on a punching bag.

The ghosts arms were still crossed over his face, the blows in such rapid succession and strength that he just kept stepping back. In the split second before the skeleton's leg struck the ghost, the ghost blocked with his right arm, latched with his left hand around the skeletons ankle before gravity made him fall, spun left and hurled the skeleton into a tree.

The crack of bark and bones splintering, and the skeletons cry were all mixed in one terrible sound.

Yet the skeleton wrenched himself away from the tree, blurred again, slashing wildly at the ghost, but this time lower to the ground, rolling and dodging and whipping under the ghosts legs as the ghost threw punches and/or tried to grab the skeleton.

Blue fireworks began to spit from the skeletons left eye, and a fuming, smoking blue energy rolled in his hands. The ghost was jerky and began using his own white energy that lit up the insides of his transparency with white lightening and fireworks.

"Why am I still here?" Frisk snapped out of it, staring at the scene. This was nothing she had ever seen before. Nothing she had ever read about. Nothing she had ever dreamed about. It both horrified, and intrigued her. "Im gonna die if I sit here." In frantic quiet, Frisk scrambled out from under the bush, indecisively looking left and right. "Where do I go?"

From across Frisk, a small white ferret like figure with wide circular eyes locked its eyes on her, nervously glancing towards the fight. He waved a hand to her, urgently. "This way," his voice barely was a whisper.

Frisks' feet shuffled forward, but she took one last glance back at the battle, and for a split second, the skeleton's eye was on her; vicious and terrible, but also wary. The look was enough to give her a jolt of fear to race after the small spirit, the two of them weaving and through over and under the forest, swift as deer filled with the fear of being hunted.


	12. SOUNDS LIKE WHISTLING

KOTV 12 SOUNDS LIKE WHISTELING?

The little ghost hopped left and right across the path, over a hill, onto a tree trunk, spin around in circles, spin around to look back at Frisk, all the while never stopping. It couldn't seem to contain its energy.

Frisk's legs had nearly given out from all the running.

"Ha-hey, wait, I can't keep up!" she was afraid to say it too loud, and so it came out like a whisper. Her heart felt another pang of worry: _Does that skeleton even need to hear me to find me?_ Her frantic breath puffed white around her as she turned and looked about.

Dissuading the impulse to ask _no one_ more questions, Frisk willed her legs to keep going- despite their aching and wobbling beneath her that almost sent her sprawling with the slightest misstep. When it seemed she could run no more, her feet crossed the border of the forest, and she stood on a crossroads. Everything was quiet, her breath was loud, and puffed white before her vision, and the storm had reduced to a calm, peaceful snow. A white haze lay thick however, so her field of vision was still quite short.

Slowing, the ghost craned its long neck and set its spotlight eyes on Frisk, still looking across the field. It was expressionless, save for a nose and ear twitching while it said: "Keep moving." It turned, skipped around, whisping about slowly like the smoke tail of a candle flame until it flickered out and vanished entirely.

"Huh? Hey, wait!" Frisk hurried forward, looking for prints in the snow, but she found none. Her shoulders sagged as she realized her guide had gone. A stillness came over her, and she took a deep breath, not really looking at anything while she chided herself. _What am I doing relying on demons anyways?_ She gawked at herself. _How do I know they're leading me anywhere safe after all they've done to hurt me? Hmm… the skeleton… I can't really trust him either because he still probably wants to drop kick me in the face. But I don't know if I'm better off on my own or not. But how do I find someone that doesn't want to hurt/hunt me?_

"I'm so confused… Why am I here?"

 _What am I going to do if he finds me?_ She shivered at the thought. _I'm a harmless bookworm! I don't know how to fight! I only know what it looks like to fight!_ Anxious, and trembling, she let out a sigh, wrapped her arms around herself, and began to walk. At least the snow was thinner here. Somehow. Her legs were so wet and cold… snow stuck to her skin and hair, and her clothes while some parts that had gotten wet had actually frozen.

 _I hope my toes aren't frozen off by now._ It might have been a crazy thought, but it also might not have been given the circumstances. As much as she tried, she just couldn't shake the disturbing thought. She tried approaching the idea rationally at least… _Obviously my toes are still attached because without them I would lose my balance. I haven't lost my balance and fallen yet, so that means my toes are not frozen off! Unless they're only half frozen and haven't cracked off the whole of my foot yet, so they would still support me even if they were mostly frozen…_

"Aaaggghhh…" Frisk groaned in dismay at her spinning thoughts. They were creeping her out; sounding so curious and casual. It was almost like she was listening to someone…

Her thoughts continued: _If my toes did break, or I couldn't walk anymore from exhaustion, what then? Well, I would have to crawl through the snow. And then maybe my fingers would freeze off. And what would I do without fingers? Fingers are important. If I can't use my fingers, I'll have to use my arms. And if I can't use my arms, then I'll have to use my teeth. Or my face._

"I could just figure out how to make an igloo. Those are warm, right?" she said to herself lightly, trying her best to calm herself down. When she still felt doubtful, she just got frustrated with herself. "Shut up already, sheesh… You're walking, you're breathing, its fine, and if you lose a few toes, it's still fine… at least you won't bleed to death because your blood would be frozen… ugggh…." She wiped her nose on her sleeve, and imagined how red her face must be now.

Noise. A jolt went through Frisk and she froze to listen.

It sounded like… singing? Whistling…? The wind? Frisk swiveled, steadily looking around. The snow was so thick she could barely see ten feet in front of her. But then there was something. Tall and broad shouldered, striding through the snow with pure confidence was a giant. A red scarf thrown about his neck flared out behind him and billowed in the wind like a cape. Holes and tears speckled the edges from use.

Gulping in fright, Frisk lunged away and plopped into the snow, holding her breath while her heart hammered. She could have sworn someone could have heard it thundering a mile away.

The whistling stopped. "Eh….?" There was a crunch of a foot halting, and a *thuck* noise as something sharp seemed to impale the snow. The silence was almost eternal, before the snow steadily began to crunch again, and the whistling continued.

As careful as she could, she raised her head to spy over the clumps of snow. How could he have not seen her? Was she that covered in snow? His back was turned, her breath caught as she saw the source of the whistling- a massive spike of bone as long as a sword, half as long as the skeleton that wielded it, casually spinning it in his hand like a baton as he walked along.

She waited long after the crunch of snow and the whistling was gone before she stood.

But there was another stranger. A few yards away, she could just make out a silhouette that vaguely looked like the shape of a stout deer. After a moment, she realized it was coming closer. For reassurance, she looked down at her feet, and saw that they were indeed stopped in the snow. She was not moving closer, they were. When she looked back up at the deer, she was nearly face to face with- him.

He had a coat of chocolate brown, thick and somewhat curly fur at its longest, around his neck and chest, white socked, and white under bellied, with light brown fur around his eyes and nose. His head was slightly wider than a normal reindeer, supporting three handsome eyes, large black pupils with faint brown irises.

Above his eyes… well… It would have been a polite thing to describe the antlers sweeping away from his head as proud and majestic, but… as ornamented as they were with so many flashing Christmas lights, it was hardly accurate. He looked absurd. But no smile came to Frisk, instead she felt frightened. The… three eyed reindeer looked so angry! And he was talking. That made it worse.

Her feet made her shuffle back through the snow, but she ended up falling down and making a "uff!" as she did. And that was what caused the reindeer to notice her, and fall silent.

"Hmm?" he tilted his head at her, stretching out his neck and picking forward through the snow, thin legs taught with muscle and thick fur. His three eyes squinted at her, and then widened, ears pricking forward at once. The lights and ornaments jingled from his antlers, clacking together, reflecting dancing reds and greens across his head and neck.

Gulping, Frisk sat silent, gazing up at the monstrous reindeer. As decorated in the holiday spirit as he was, he looked as though he might trample her any moment. But the expression on his face quickly softened as he looked her up and down.

The reindeer's breath puffed white then- he'd been holding it. Then he raised his head up, still looking down at her. He was slow to say: "What are you doing out here?" he coughed.

The question seemed so random and normal, she hadn't been prepared for it. "Uh… I got lost…" she found herself stumbling over her words, and blinking in confusion.

"Hmm… you have no fur… what are you wearing?"

"… a sweater?" She suggested.

The reindeer snorted. "You've made very poor traveling plans."

"Yeah…" Frisk laughed, and then stopped, surprised at herself.

"Do you know where you're headed?"

"No," Frisk laughed gloomily, "I have no idea where to go."

He gave her a lopsided look then, quirking his eyebrows at her. "Right you said you got lost…" he looked up, right in this case, and his ears flicked forward and back, and when he looked back at her, he puffed more air through his black nose. "The path that leads directly out of the woods- you see where I'm looking? You need to go that way. There's a bridge you will have to cross. There's a rail- hold on to it; there will be ice that will try its best to trip you."

Frisk glanced at her knees, and the snow, and realized how cold her back was getting. Climbing to her feet, she spun around and shook out her shirt. "Aaaah so coold!" she hissed.

The reindeer had shifted himself back a step to give her room. They stared at each other for a moment. Frisk frowned, leaning to one side as she peered up at the reindeers' horns. "Would you like some help getting that off?"

"What?" he jerked his head a little in surprise, and the lights and wires jingled and clinked together.

Frisk had her hand raised, pointing to the tangled colors. "Are those what you were upset about?"

The reindeer blinked his surprise. He looked about, stamped his feet, obviously nervous. "Well, yes…" he sighed. "It was a prank."

"A prank?"

"Obnoxious kids thought I was a tree…" he dipped his head a little, but not too far that he couldn't watch her.

"They must have been some tall kids." Frisk remarked, reaching up to wind away some of the lights. "How are these even working? There's no power outlet." As she took them away from the reindeer, the lights suddenly went dark.

"There are lots of magical items here. It's not really too complicated to understand. The lights reacted to my magic... my energy. But not every monster is the same." He shrugged, "Thank you for removing that awful apparatus."

"Yeah, you're welcome." Confused, she wrapped them into a small roll around her arm, and then threw the bundle around her shoulder after fitting her arm through.

"You're not going to just drop it?"

"No, someone might trip over it," Frisk shrugged, and managed a smile, fidgeting a moment before saying, "Well, thank you for the directions. I'll… just… uh…" she turned, waving to the reindeer as she did so, and trudged on back to the path.

After a moment, the reindeer muttered, "You're going to freeze before you get there…" then the snow crunched lightly behind Frisk, and then he trotted up beside her, peering down at the frail human kindly. "I can't just leave a child with no cat to walk through a blizzard alone. Hop up, and I'll carry you to town."

Blinking rapidly and stepping back, Frisk waved her hands, "Wha- wait, you don't have to do that…!"

"Nonsense!" he looked around for a moment, then waved his head towards a massive clump of snow. "Climb up that snow poff. It should give you enough height."

Looking defeated, but freezing and blue, Frisk shivered, "Are you sure?"

"Quite." He nodded once, and stepped beside the snow poff, waiting.

Frisk fidgeted for a moment, but gave in with a sigh: "Okay." Poking her legs like a crane over the snow, she crossed over to the snow poff to size it up. It was just a giant deflated snowball about four feet high. It was hard, but it wasn't slippery. Pressing her fingers into the snow was like digging her fingers through tiny knives from the ice, but she grit her teeth, leaned her weight forward and dug her knees into the snow. Slowly, she climbed up on the tips of her shoes, sidled to the edge of the snow poff and hooked a leg over the reindeer. She managed to ease her weight onto his back so that he didn't get hurt. She looked at her hands, wondering if the snow might have actually cut them- but they only appeared red.

"Put your arms around my neck. Don't tug on my fur, just keep a grip. Don't want you to fall." When she had done so, he swayed forward, and broke into a trot. Frisk jerked at first, her arms slipping a little, and legs shifting, but she managed to keep her grip. The reindeer had thick and bristly fur speckled with snow, but he was warm. Frisk kept herself tense, arms and legs stiff, her face leaning onto the reindeers' fur. Lifting his legs high and making fine circular holes in the thick snow, the reindeer trotted on at a fairly smooth gate, and still fast. From the taller height, Frisk could see a lot more and farther of the area. It was very beautiful and white, and quiet…

Then the ground disappeared and there was a slippery icy bridge beneath them and suddenly Frisk was holding on for deer for life.

"I've got you, don't worry… but keep a good grip, understand?" he kept at constant trot across the bridge, never once slipping.

Frisk sighed in relief after they had crossed the bridge. It had taken way too long to cross it. "Thank you so much, I don't think I could have done that by myself."

The deer was silent for a moment, but his sides rumbled and then he said: "I suppose it is a bit scary, but it is a well-constructed bridge. It was meant to withstand the cold- though I suppose you weren't…" his voice trailed off.

He continued on at a trot, through thicker and deeper snow and through woods and off paths.

Frisk was silent for a while about it, but then she piped up and asked: "You don't want to take the paths?"

"Ah, no. There are dogs. I'd rather avoid them if I can, and I would suggest you steer clear of them as well."

"Why?" Frisk hesitated, watching the dogs march on their patrol from the distance.

"Pff- Why?" he spluttered, "Because! They're just as obnoxious as the pranksters who adorned me in their cheap plastic rainbows." He huffed in frustration.

"Just stay low to my back, and stay still if you can."

"Thank you for helping me get so far…" Frisk said after a while of silence, "But I don't really know what to do from here."

"The first thing we'll do is get you someplace warm. Don't worry, I know a place with nice monsters who'd love to take you in. From there, you can figure out where you want to go, or where to stay."

Now they crossed down a bank, and Frisk had to tense and lean back and forward again when he landed on his front legs and his rear leveled again.

Ahead of them, tall buildings rose up from the snow as dim grey and brown, brick and mortar. They weren't always too much to look at, but the shape of them was oddly varied. The height and width of doors and floors, and the size of stone for the walls was different for many of the buildings. The roofing was often tile, but other times just metal.

The deer skipped through the snow between them, weaving between shadows down the snow covered alleys for a few minutes before stopping, and looking up at a tall, wide building with ornate trims with swirls and clouds. The doors might have befit a barn they were so big.

"This is the inn. Go on inside, and tell them you haven't got a place to stay, you're alone… and they'll take care of you."

"Think they will?" Frisk swung herself over and off of the deer. Her joints ached from the fall, and she cringed, trying to shift the weight on her legs, but it didn't really seem to help much.

"Most definitely. These are kind people. They'll warm you up, and help you get to where you want to go."

Frisk was still, and just stared for a moment, but then the deer gave her a nudge. "Head inside," he said gently.

"Thank you!" Frisk shivered, stepped onto the porch, pushed at the door. It wouldn't budge. When the bundle of lights on her shoulder sagged, she shifted them back up, and decided to pull on the door instead. It swung outward, and warm light washed over her and cast shadows in the hoof prints in the snow.


	13. JUST A REMINDER

KOTV: 13 JUST A REMINDER

The room had been considerably much warmer before the newcomer had opened the door, and it gave the Bunny Lady behind the counter a jump. Not that the cold bothered her too much, but it still startled her. She started to stay, "Welcome to Snowdin Inn!" but she gawked when she saw the child step into view and shut the door behind her.

She was a shivering little thing nearly tall enough to reach her shoulder, wearing clothes that might have been warm once, but were now rigid with ice and snow- and the fabric was torn in too many places. Her hair was a royal mess, while their face, nose and hands were pink from cold. Her skin was speckled with tiny cuts, and there was a terrible wound healing on her right eye.

The child looked up and squinted at the Bunny Lady. "Uh… hi?" she said, quaking with shivers. "Someone told me this was a place to-"

"Ah… Get ya' warmed up," the Bunny Lady said abruptly, nose twitching as she raised up in surprise. "Yer blue! Honey, ya look like ya been freezing ta death! How long ya been out there?!" She rushed around the counter and hollered beside the stair well: "Henry, would ya' put on some water to boil? We got a popsicle in 'ere!" she bent at her hips and pat the child's shoulders.

"Ooooh, goodness, ya need somethin' warm!" her brows furrowed, "Come this way, we'll get ya dried off, an a' fresh pair a' clothes…" with a hand on childs' shoulder, she guided her to a door in the wall to the left of the stairs, where inside was a long hallway with dryers and washing machines, and clothes racks. There was a stack of old worn towels folded neatly on a shelf, and beside was a thin shutter door with clothes. "Hmm…" she grabbed a shirt and thrust it at Frisk, sizing it up to her shoulders. "Yer tall, but thin. Might have to get a few pins…" she sighed, "Alrighty, here's a sweater, and these pants are elastic, hope they aren't too short…" she shifted through more clothes, "Oh, I'll find something better later when you're less wet. We have to get you out of those freezing things!"

The child shifted awkwardly, "Thank you…?" she said softly, rubbing her arms.

"Here," the bunny lady grabbed a towel from the rack, and led the child to another door where inside were rows of shower stalls. She shut a door behind them, "Get yer clothes off, and I'll dry ya, sweetie."

She was a little too frozen at the joints to take off her clothes, so the Bunny Lady helped, and soon she was patting her down with a green towel, ruffing up her hair and shaking away the snow. Her clothes fell in a wet pile at their feet, and she was soon trying on a brown sweater, and grey sweat pants. They were snug against her waist and dragged at her feet, but only slightly.

"Well, its not the most perfect thing, but it'll do till you get warmed up."

"No, its fine, thank you!" the child rubbed her hands over her arms. Her mind went blank suddenly, and she felt a sudden strong sense that she was forgetting something.

The Bunny lady opened the stall door, scooped up the wet clothes, and ushered the child back to the laundry room. "I'll really don't think the sweater is making it, honey…" she held it up and inspected the cuts. "Its too torn… what did you go through out there?" her brows furrowed, concentrating as she flipped the sweater around in her hands. She took a deep breath and set the wet clothes over a basket edge beside a washing machine. With a somewhat stern gaze, she looked down at the child.

"I uhm… kind'a like to keep my sweater… if it's alright," the child said meakly.

"I ain't gonna come between ya and yer sweater, hon," the bunny lady shook her head, "I'll wash it, and see if I can patch it up for ya."

"Thank you," she said as the Bunny Lady sent her back to the entrance room. "Sorry I never asked for yer name, hon?"

"Frisk," she managed with a smile.

"I'm Rachel, but ya can call me Ray if ya like. Pleasure ta meet ya, Frisk," the Bunny Lady said with a smile that reached her eyes, "Henry, got that pot boiling? C'mere and meet Frisk!"

"Comin, Ma!" a smaller bunny, (who might have been a few inches taller than Frisk,) wearing a blue sweater and jeans, barefoot came out of the room next to the stairs. The fur on the top of his head frayed over his forehead messily, and one of his ears was up, the other down. His grey eyes set on Frisk, and he suddenly grew a little in height. "Oh! Hi!" he waved, smiling for a moment, and then faltering. "Gosh, you look so cold!"

"Henry, could you guide Frisk to the kitchen? I'll get a pot of cereal for her boiling."

"Sure!" Henry stepped aside as his mom bustled past him through the doorway, and went to greet the popsicle. "Hiya, Frisk! Uhm, name's Henry, but ya already knew that I guess, but ma says it's always polite." He put a hand on her back and guided her the way his ma had gone. "

"Nice ta meet ya, Frisk! We'll get ya warmed up in no time! Been out for a while?"

"Yeah… can't remember how long, really… I think it was dark when I first set out?"

"Where ya from?"

"Ah… beyond the woods?"

"Sounded like a question more than an answer. Oh well, Ma says not ta pester. Didn't mean ta bother ya, just tryin'a be friendly is all."

"No, its fine," Frisk's teeth chattered.

Henry only shrugged as they passed a dark wood table with similar chairs, all adorned with warm, fine knit covers and drapes. Across from there, nearer to the open space of the kitchen was a red leather couch that Henry helped Frisk to.

All the rest of the level had wooden floors, but the kitchen had a greyish stone. Behind the floating islands, Henry's mom was making some racket sifting through pots and pans in the cabinets. When she'd found a pan, she'd leaned to the burner, flipped the switch and let the stove top warm up as she filled up a pale with broad handles in the sink.

To the left of the red couch, there was a doorway beside that led to what might have been private quarters for attendants.

"Just a sec," he hopped to the other side of the doorway and swung open a thin door in the wall. He shuffled about with whatever was inside for a moment before leaning back with a thick brown bundle, and leaning to close the door with his shoulder. "Here ya go!" he unfurled the blanket in a grand flourish, and threw it about Frisks shoulders. It was a heavy, but soft and warm blanket, and Frisk drew it around herself eagerly.

"Ooooh, that's better… Thank you!" She gasped.

"Not a problem!" Henry waved a dismissive hand. "Few more minutes, and ma will have you a pot of warm water."

"Thank you so much!" she huddled on the edge of the couch.

With a carefree jump, Henry sat down beside Frisk, and kicked his feet up and down. "I'm trying to think of some things to warm you up," he began lightly, "Ma says its best to warm someone up slowly, usually warm water for your feet, warm drink, or cereal is pretty good for you as well." he leaned forward a bit to peer at her face. "Huh? You okay? You look awful worried."

"I'm just surprised by the willingness of purely random people trying too hard to help me," she mumbled: " _and otherwise…_ "

"Oh," he sat back, "Well, we run an inn, and it's good to be welcoming. " _Make it feel like home,_ " ma says," Frisk caught him smiling buck teeth at her. "Besides, there's lotsa other kids Ma helps take care of around here."

"Other kids?"

"Some folks can't take care of em, or they just ain't got nowhere. We do get guests to stay here, but a lot of times it's just kids. And we all help out to keep things runnin' when we can. You're welcome as long as you wanna be here, uh… Frisk, right?"

Frisk watched Henry for a long moment before Henry perked up and called to his mom, "Watch'ya doin' over there?"

"Stirrin' cereal and watchin' the water not boil."

"Ma, you told me yer not supposed to watch water boil er it never will!"

"Sssh, er it'll hear ya," his mom chuckled as she continued to stir the other pot.

Henry shook his head, still grinning, "Oh well, feeling any better yet?"

"It's a lot warmer in here than it is out there," Frisk grinned.

"Sure is!" Henry nodded.

Rachel brought over a tray with a steaming bowl and sat it on the table. "Come over here, and get some food in ya."

Henry helped Frisk up, and they crossed to the table. Henry pulled out a chair for Frisk to sit down- it was a surprisingly comfortable chair. A bowl of porridge sat in front of her, steaming, with some sugar poured on the top, with little bits of apple chopped into it. She grabbed the spoon on the side and started stirring up the contents while Henry made to sit down as well…

"Henry, let her eat her food, come over 'ere and help me clean, and ya'll can talk later, a'right?"

"Ya, kay," Henry waved to Frisk before hurrying off with his ma to clean clean up the kitchen; cleaning pans, and wiping things clean with quick, and jumpy efficiency.

Frisk got a spoonful of porridge, made sure to grab an apple, blew on it, and took a bite. The taste melted in her mouth sweetly and slightly tart because of the apple. The oats were still a little smooth in texture, but they hadn't been cooked long enough for it to be overwhelming. Rachel had practice cooking this, and she was a pro. Frisk gobbled up the porridge quickly, but she felt dismayed when she was barely halfway, and already getting full. She started pecking at the apples individually then; at least wanting to finish those. It had been months since she'd eaten any really good apples, not since… well… she couldn't remember.

"Oh!" she stabbed the spoon into the porridge and stood up, causing Rachel to look at her. "It's really good! Thank you! But uhm, I forgot my glasses in my clothes, I think, I'll be right back!" she hurried away and went back to the laundry room.

Frisk squinted, trying to remember where the basket was since she couldn't see more than a blur at the moment. She saw shapes, and came close to inspect. She found the right basket quickly, and looked through the pockets of her pants. They were soaking wet. They weren't in the first pocket. Heart racing, she reached for the other pocket, but they weren't there either.

"Oh no…" Frisk groaned. "How am I going to…" she took a deep breath and sighed. "It's not like I could use them anyway, but…" she hung her head and turned to leave- but she stopped. There, sitting on the edge of the dryer, were her glasses neatly folded, cracks and all. She reached out for them, and held them up in front of her eyes to peer through them.

For the split second that she did, there was a skeleton with a blue jacket watching her from the doorway of the entrance, and when she jerked back and the glasses moved from her eyes, the skeleton was gone.

Her pulse pounding deafeningly in her ears, she staggered back, and crouched between two washing machines to sit against the wall. Holding her knees, with her glasses rattling in one hand, she huddled in fear.

She had fallen into a world of monsters, had been cut and thrown, had nearly frozen to death, hunted by demons and skeletons, and rescued by a talking lion with horns, a reindeer with a sideways jaw, and bunnies… "I'm insane… there's no way all this is happening…" whatever haze she had been in that had kept her from realizing the weight of everything before now suddenly cleared, and now the tears streamed down her face and wouldn't stop.


	14. POOR HUMAN

14 POOR HUMAN… NO ONE WILL HURT YOU HERE

Footsteps and calling. Frisks face was buried in the fold of her arms and knees. She wasn't sure when, but she must have fallen asleep, because her breath and quaking had calmed, and her tears dried. Lifting her head from her arms, she looked up through the narrow space ahead of her made by two white objects. For a second, she was at a loss for what they were. But as she saw the wood floor and walls and many blurry doors, and she realized she was still in the inn.

She wiped a sleeve on her eyes, and brushed away the dried tears on her cheek.

"Frisk?" the small bunny had appeared so suddenly across the room Frisk actually jumped and hit the washing machine. The bang of metal caused Henry to turn and spot her cowering in the machines nook. His eyes brightened upon seeing her. "Frisk!" he smiled, and hopped forward eagerly, but she flinched and he stopped short. "What are ya doin' down 'ere for?" he said quietly, and frowned, ears tucking back on his head as he tilted to the side. "Ya feelin alright?"

Rachel's voice called: "Henry? Ya find her yet?"

"Yeah ma," he called over his shoulder, "But uh… could ya come 'ere a sec?" the noise making Frisk cringe. Henry looked back at her, brows knit with worry, his mouth parted with something unsaid. They sat in silence just waiting until Rachel appeared behind him. A shadow crossed her eyes and she knelt down to the left of Henry.

She spoke softly, "I don't think yer so pale because of the cold anymore, Frisk… no one's gonna hurt ya here."

The human gave the slightest of nods and stared at the floor.

Rachel paused, jaw clenched, ears twitching left and right.

"Ma, is she okay?" Henry whispered.

"I dunno, honey," Rachel leaned back on a knee, and just sat and watched Frisk in silence. "Did ya find what ya were lookin for, Frisk?"

A grim line drew across Frisks face, her eyes squenched and glistened with tears.

"What did you find?" Rachel said softly.

Frisk began to say something, but all that was mustered was a brief hoarse squeak. Slowly, she unfolded her arms, and held up her broken glasses.

Rachel's brow furrowed, "You really need your glasses. Anything else?"

Frisk buried her face in her arms. "I'm being followed…"

With surprise, Rachel looked towards the entrance with a narrowness to her eyes. Her fur stood up on end along the top of her head for a moment. Frisk studied her warily. She sighed. "I think I know who you're talkin' about… Look, Frisk, I think you realize that I know what you are," she lowered her gaze and searched Frisks' eyes till she looked back. "But I promise you… I am not one a' them. Understand me?" there was an underlying tone of rage in her words. Her chin trembled, "I promise I am not one a them. I won't hurt ya, Henry won't hurt ya, we won't let anyone touch ya Frisk."

Frisk averted her eyes, and nodded softly.

"Do you wanna climb up outa there yet? I can get ya something warm ta drink, er Henry an I can show ya around; find a room for ya."

Frisk nodded, "I… I'd like to walk around."

"Okay then," Rachel stood up, and held out a hand with fur and claws to her.

Slowly, Frisk shifted forward to take the Bunny's hand, and she was helped to her feet.


	15. FLUFFY BEDS AND BARRED WINDOWS

15 DA CAT-MOUSE MONSTER FLUFFY BEDS AND BARRED WINDOWS

"Right, so this is basically a storage closet for cleaning and stuff, brooms, and surface cleaner, got tissues an things like paper towels… just lots a random stuff." Henry walked ahead of a slowly padding Frisk. "This door is for blankets and things, for like winter and cold nights, and this… well that's a room, but this is extra storage for clothes and things no one's using. But there's also a place like this in the laundry room downstairs. But if you need any clothes or size, Ma usually knows where it is. There's two bathrooms up here; one there, and another down the next hallway to the right."

"Ah…" Frisk nodded, and circled her gaze around the thin hallway. It branched at the end wall, and it there were more rooms down that way. There were so many shelves in the walls with shutter doors. The rooms were of modest size too, but they fit as many as two bunk beds.

Footsteps made Frisk turn to see a red furred cat monster kid hobble towards them. He resembled a cat, with the markings on his head, and wide yellow cat eyes that shimmered in the dark. His ears were long with thick tufts of fur poofing around them, which contrasted with the thin fur on his body. He was a little shorter than Frisk, and despite all the cat she saw in him, he almost had the mannerisms of a mouse.

"You new?" he glanced between Frisk and Henry.

"Yeah! This here's Frisk! I'm showin' her around. Frisk, this is-"

"Kaelan. Hey," he waved a black arm so thin and wiry it could have been a lock pick. "Nice to meet you, hope you enjoy it here. We'll have to talk later." He gave Frisk a tired smile, and disappeared behind the dark restroom door.

"Kaelan's really cool!" Henry carried on eagerly, "Hey, later tomorrow you can meet everyone and maybe we can all play some games together! We got some old game consoles and racing games, but we've also got puzzles and checkers."

"I think that'd be fun," Frisk grinned at him.

"Hey Frisk, ready ta see yer room?" Rachel's voice called from behind them.

In the room Rachel had prepared, there was a plush looking bed with a green comforter and white pillows. Beside the bed was a tall dark wood dresser, a smaller matching dresser, a coat rack, and a massive crate at the end of the bed. There were carvings in it that looked like they might have been etched by young hands. There was a nightstand beside the pillows, and a small lamp casting an amber light. A window poured soft blue light into the room… through thick diagonal black bars.

"Should be a fairly warm room fer ya Frisk, hope ya like it!" Rachel smiled.

"It's nice," Frisk grinned, going to sit on the edge of the bed. "Comfy," she said satisfactorily, and flopped back over the thick blankets. "Thanks…"


	16. THE UNDERGROUND SUN IS THE CORE

16 DA-THE UNDERGROUND SUN IS THE CORE

Frisk wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep, but suddenly the morning light was pressing on her eyes and opening them. She squinted through the rays that filtered through her window, over the country hills and the few buildings dotting them. The ceilings of the underground spread high above, hanging like a sea of stone. It seemed endless, vanishing over the horizon and a bright white light in the distance. Although the source of the light could not be seen.

Curious, Frisk rolled the blankets Rachel had likely tucked her under away, curled her legs beneath her and stared out the window. "If that's not the sun, what is that?"

"That… is the Core."

"The Core?" Frisk turned to see who had spoken, but there was no one there. Chilled, and with a burst of adrenaline she leapt out of bed and rushed down the stairs.

An aroma like bacon and eggs reached her nose. Rachel was in the kitchen. Her ears twitched in Frisks' direction and she looked up at the slightest of sound. "Mornin!" she smiled, "Hope you're hungry! Take a seat, say your thanks, and have a bite."

The table was spread with plates and utensils, and there were pots and bowls of rolls, what seemed to be eggs and bacon, along with a few other few unrecognizable foods. Much if it had been grabbed already, but it seemed there was still enough… Seated around the table were a dozen young monsters chattering or chittering away with childlike enthusiasm. Frisk might have felt a pang in her heart at not seeing any humans and feeling terribly out of place… But the monsters' happiness was the cause of the ache in her, not their faces.

"Mornin!" Henry carried a basket of laundry past Frisk, who despite being ravished, was rooted in place.

Rachel gave the human a second glance, nodded knowingly, and stopped what she was doing to make Frisk a plate. "Scuse me, hand me that please," one of the kids oblidged, and within a few seconds she'd sat a plate down at an empty seat beside a bear with long floppy ears, dark brown fur, with paws that were more like thumbs than a real bears. Rachel caught their attention, "Someone new, a girl named Frisk is going to sit here. A'right?"

The bear gave a slight nod.

Rachel waved a hand at Frisk, and she came over and sat down.

"Hi," the bear said softly, "I'm Jared. Nice to meet you Frisk."

"Yeah, you too," she grinned, and fumbled with her fork. She poked at the eggs.

"Would you like some salt?" the bear scooted over a small shaker with a stubby black claw.

"Thanks," she sprinkled it across the eggs, and started to eat.

After a while, she realized someone across from her was staring.

Frisk glanced up at them, but they blinked and looked away. "Sorry," they mumbled. "Just- uh… thinking."

"When did you come in?" a boy, a scrawny dark orange almost pug like faced kid said. When he shifted in his feet, something black and webby shifted behind him. Oh. Bat wings.

She swallowed her food before she answered. "Late last night."

"Late this morning," Henry corrected as he walked past.

"Oh, uh, okay. Were you out in that storm?"

"Yeah," she sighed, "It was absolutely freezing. I thought I was going to loose my toes."

"How long were you out in it?"

She paused. "Had to have been the entire day. It was walking for a really long time, it was dark, then it got light again, and then it got dark."

"Wow. Did you have any idea where you were going?"

"Does anyone?"

"Someone told me about the inn, and helped me here."

"Oh, yeah? Nice of em."

"Bret, you ask too many questions. Let her eat." The next one who spoke was taller, had four horns branching from her head, and other placed like her shoulders and wrists. Her clothes were cut short on her shoulders to avoid the horns. She resembled a german shepard, in color and shape, but with thin fur, a Mohawk of brownish gold along her head and spine. Around her joints and horns the skin was callused and black. Her arms were long and slender, but taught with muscle. She might have been one of the oldest of the kids. She looked really tough, but not unfriendly.

"Ah… I'm Enyo by the way. What was your name again? Frisk?"

"You heard right. Enyo?"

"Yep," she downed a glass of orange juice.

"Bout done?" she glanced at Frisks' plate.

"Yeah… uh, what was that… purple stuff?"

Enyo's eyebrows lifted, "You've never eaten grizo?"

"No?"

"Huh. It's a type of bird."

"Oh."

"Its like a chicken," she scooted her chair back and sighed, stretched her arms toward the table. "Agggh," she yawned, baring all the teeth of a dog. Her canines were a little longer than normal though, and her tongue was purple. "Im gonna get up, wanna come with?"

"Frisk can't go outside with you, Enyo," Rachel said.

"Oh?" she tilted her head in a curious way. "Has she got a coat?"

Rachel was silent for a moment. "If you've got one to spare, then she can."

"Would ya mind?"

Frisk shook her head, "No."

"Ha, I've got one. It'll look like a dress on you though!" she got up, and walked around the table. Frisk got up and went after her, following her up the stairs.


	17. OH YEAH THAT PLOT TWIST

17 OH YEAH THAT PLOT TWIST

"You don't have to wait at the door, you know, you can come in," Enyo remarked as she shrugged on a green jacket with brownish hoodie fluff.

It was half out of politeness, sure… but… there wasn't much room for her to walk either. The floor could barely be seen through all the clothes and boxes and- comic books? The walls were covered in photos, drawings, coat racks and clothes hangers. Among the various items displayed on the shelves, there were sci-fi books, a pink radio, a figurine of a wizard and a dragon, but the wizard's rod had been chipped, and part of his robe. The dragon was missing a wing and a claw. The blanket on the bed was a modge-podge of colors from clothes and various books.

One of the books had a hand wrapped around it. There was a small pinkish colored monster curled up there reading it. She looked like a light pink ferret that had been stretched out like a snake. She peaked up over the book at Frisk with wide colorless eyes, and a face long like a ferret. Their nose twitched, and the white rimmed glasses on her nose shifted. The hooks were shaped oddly to hook over the ears on her head.

"Who are you?"

Frisk was about to answer, but Enyo did for her. "Name's Frisk," she compared jackets from the hangers in her closet, fighting and shoving them aside. "Dang it, is it all the way back there?"

"… Are you two going outside?"

"Yeah, wanna come with?"

"I'd rather stay where it's warm and read my book."

"Did Kalam find the mystery girl yet?"

"Oh yeah. Long time ago. She was the Sorcerer all along."

Enyo stopped and looked back at the ferret. "What?!"

"Yep," she nodded, continuing to read.

"So all that- all the letters and the freaking visions that WASN'T a princess locked away in a tower?"

"No," she laughed, shaking her head.

"What was the point…?" Enyo had dug a snow white jacket out of the closet, and was looking it over. It had grey zippers, grey insides, and a fluffy grey white hood fluff. Her eyes suddenly glazed over, and she shot a look back at the grin on her friends face. "It… it's not because-"

"The sacrifice is him, not her. Oh and she was the one who sent the Gremlins."

"She's the reason his family died?!"

The ferret nodded slowly. "Oh yeah."

Enyo's eyes narrowed, and her lips drew thin. "She's gonna get it." stiffly, she strode past Frisk and dropped the coat in her hands. "Keep me updated."

"You know it," before Frisk could follow after Enyo, Alcina continued: "I'm Alcina by the way." her smile was gone.

Frisk paused, shifting at the door way. "… How did you like the part where Garet encountered Xor in the ruins?"

Alcina looked up very slowly and blinked at Frisk. "It was epic. You've read Hall of Shadows?" her jaw hung open.

With a knowing smirk, she went on: "Let me know when Garet finds the dragon statues."

Alcina stared. "You and me are going to get along quite well."


	18. You may outrun them but not me

18 You may outrun them but youll never outrun ME

Rachel called after Frisk and Enyo, "Don't loose sight of eachother, hear?"

"We got it," Enyo rolled her eyes a little as she reached for the door.

Rachel said more strongly: "I don't want Frisk getting lost in the snow. She ain't used to it here yet, Enyo."

"Chill, I'll be watchin' for her," Enyo pushed the door open and held it for Frisk to pass. Instantly a rush of freezing wind rushed up past her face.

The bite of cold on Frisks bare hands was instantaneous. She was so glad there were pockets in this coat!

"Oh, uhm- there are gloves in there."

"I feel them, thanks," she put them on, but they were cut at the tips.

"Claws, I swear it's not a weird fashion sense," Enyo apologized, tucking her own hands as she turned to walk onto the path.

There were tire tracks, and the snow had been mowed away. Their feet didn't sink, so much as make a soft impression in the already flattened snow.

"Its fine, I don't mind. I mean at least your coat has pockets! Thanks for letting me borrow it."

"Yeah, no problem. Uh… I would give it to you but… it's not exactly your color. I'll have to take you out sometime and get you one." She grinned back at Frisk, and though startled, Frisk grinned back.

"That'd be really cool of you."

"Eh," she shrugged, "Its fun. Somethin to do."

"Bored?"

"Well… Snowdins a really chill place but there's not really much to do-" her voice trailed off abruptly. "Ah dang it."

"What?"

"Aaah, just bad influences is all," she smirked in spite of herself, "So how do ya feel about meetin' some a my friends?"

"Sure?"

"Cool. Uh, there's a park over here. We just run around and parkour a little."

"Parkour?"

"Stunt stuff."

"How do you do that in the snow?"

"We don't have to worry about it there."

How- what? Frisk didn't ask, just fell into step behind Enyo wondering if the park was possibly inside a building.

Apparently not.

The park was framed by a lot of tall pine trees dripping with snow...? there were puddles scattered around the edges of the wood logs framing the edges of the park. The birch shavings on the floor was dark and wet too. There were dozens of monsters racing around slides, swinging, scrambling up rock climb walls… others jumping and twisting from high places and rolling expertly across the ground.

A monster covered in purple flame was strolling along the edges of the park, merely walking past snow to melt it. Other monsters kept their distance, the heatwaves rolling away from her might have been some five feet away.

"Hey, Fuku!" someone waved to Fuku as they jumped over the logs and raced into the park.

Enyo walked on to the right of the park where several teenagers were sitting looking rather exhausted. Some of them had shed their coats for sweaters, some their bare skin- or fur. A dark, thick furred, grey rat-looking person with a scaled tale and limbs looked up as he downed his water bottle. His eyes brightened when he spotted Enyo approaching. "Ey Enyo!" he capped the bottle and jumped to his feet.

"Ey Kaz, hows it goin?" she approached him, holding up a hand.

"Ah, pretty good," they clapped hands, and then shook. "Just had a good run."

"How many times you break?"

"Didn't this time."

"All the way from waterfall?" Enyo mused, "You kidden."

"Nah, I swear, ran all the way with Kal and Tor over there. Didn't we guys?"

Kal and Tor- whichever they were, and had similar features akin to bats with their black leathery wings and bristly fur. The wings were their forearms, but hands with five digits hung at the joint of the wings wrists. They were webbed… Gills flexed uselessly behind their jaws, under thinner fur. Long tails flopped impatiently beside them, also webbed…

 _They're water bat monsters?_

The one on the right was shorter, and held himself more proudly while the left was taller and almost retreated into himself and couldn't seem to meet anyone's eye like the other bat. His fur was pitch black with dusty grey fur around white eyes. He had a long snout with a black nose, and sharp glinting fangs jutting below his upper lip. Four narrow horns curving upward sprouted between the big ears standing up on top of his head. The one on the right had a golden black fur, a shorter muzzle, and had two white splotches above his left eye, both of which were a dark yellow.

"Yeah I'm dyin dude," a bat monster said, his eyes shimmering red as he looked over at Kaz.

"I took one break and then caught up. Kind of regretted that. But that wasn't really long. But yeah, we did." The other monster was a very

"Huh," Enyo nodded approvingly. "Time?"

"Thirty minutes?" Tor shrugged.

"Cool. Gonna have to run with you guys sometime, see if you're lyin' or not." She bared her teeth in a challenging smirk.

Kaz laughed, "You're welcome to," he glanced aside at Frisk, "We've been ignoring your buddy here long enough though. Sup?"

"Uh," Frisk shrugged, "Just enjoying the puddles, I guess," she chuckled.

"Yeah, Fuku's pretty cool. We're real lucky we got a candle here, or this park would be useless!"

His friends, though enwrapped in their own conversations echoed agreement in this.

"So what's your name?" the bat kid said.

"I'm Frisk." She realized she'd tired the muscles in her grin for the day. Huh. She couldn't remember ever tiring her face. That was a weird feeling.

"She's new around here, I'm just showin' her the ropes," Enyo said with a hand on her hip.

"Cool," Kaz nodded, grinning friendly, he glanced back at his friends, and pointed to the bat on the right, "He's Kal," he pointed to left, "He's Antor."

"Hi!" Kal waved, the wings clinging close to his arm… ( _are those straps holding them down_?)

Antor waved, looking over Frisk, eyes narrow and thinking.

Enyo stretched her arms, "Now that everyone knows everyone…" she looked at Frisk, "You wanna run a little? I mean you could just watch, but even with Fuku around, you'll still get cold eventually."

"I'd kind of like a break from running actually…" she mumbled incoherently. _I need to do something to fit in, darn it, nows not the time!_ "Sure, but I don't think I get out as much as everyone else here."

"No worries, you'll get stronger. Cold makes you tough!"

"I lived in a pretty humid area before, but I've heard your lungs can get stronger when you run in the cold."

"Humid?" Enyo blinked, then made a face, "Oh. Right." she rocked on her legs, stretching. "When there's water in the air and its hot?"

"Y-yeah…"

"You gonna stretch?"

"Oh!"

It was a bit of an experience learning to stretch in such a thick coat. Enyo laughed at her efforts, and Frisk eventually shrugged it off, revealing a black sweater with a turtle neck. She was cold, but she was not running in this coat. She looked around to find a place dry to sit it. "Uhm…?" Everywhere was wet.

"Just sit it here," Antor grabbed it from her and tossed it on a tarp they'd laid out over the wet mulch.

"Ready?" Enyo asked the others as they all stood and had finished stretching.

"What are we doing exactly?" Frisk asked.

"Three laps if you can around the park. No biggie if you have to break. No one's gonna hate on ya."

"Okay. Sounds do-able." She nodded, feeling a bouncing in her feet. This might actually be fun.

"Go!" Antor exclaimed, and they surged past, Frisk and Enyo followed.

Frisk was a little slow to start, but she quickly caught up to Enyo and even got a little ahead of her.

"Hey look at you go, shortie!" Enyo laughed at her.

Frisk skidded past a slide and skirted around someone tumbling out of it. "Yeep!" she exclaimed, "Sorry!"

"S'okay!" said the little yellow monster. Did he have arms…?

Frisk kept running, quickly gaining on Kal.

Kal heard her footsteps and glanced over his shoulder twice. "Really?!" his feet flung dirt. "No way you're catching up to me!" he sped up.

Frisk did as well. They were toe to toe, and Enyo was just behind them. At the third lap, Kaz and Antor were waiting for them at the tarp.

After Frisk had passed a group of monsters to her left, a blue splotch drew her eye. A skeleton with his hands tucked in his blue jacket, hood over his skull so that shadows cast over the curves of his face. Two white stars followed her from the dark of his eyes, a permanent grin curled between his fangs.

So this was what the face of death looked like. A skeleton in a blue hoodie.


	19. you remember him dont you

19 YOU REMEMBER HIM, DON'T YOU?

The skeleton was gone and disappeared as someone jogged past him.

 _Had he ever even been there? Or am I just being paranoid?_ Frisk had stopped to stare in the place the skeleton had stood. Of course he'd been there. He can just magic himself in and out of places fast. Just- why is he following me? At least he hasn't attacked me though… yet.

"Ey, Frisk, you okay?" Enyo's hand clapped Frisk on the shoulder, and she jumped back in surprise.

"Huh?!"

"You okay?"

"Uhm- yeah. I'm just- uh…" she sighed and hung her head. "Just got… spooked is all."

"What?"

"I'm okay, never mind… thanks."

Antor shifted his eyes. "… I don't mean to be rude but…" he came closer so he could whisper: "What are you doing out here?" he looked darkly serious. "It's not very… safe."

Enyo stood close beside him and Frisk. "Yeah, so? She can't stay all cooped up in the inn."

"I'm just worried… I wouldn't do anything to hurt you, but if anyone's looking for you…" he trailed off. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to make anyone scared, but I'm just- worried."

Enyo growled, "She can come out whenever she feels like it. She don't need to be scared and go off and hide."

"Maybe I should though…" Frisk muttered.

Enyo looked at her sharply, with analyzing eyes. "I don't want you to be scared, Frisk."

"I know, but…" she looked back where she had seen the skeleton. "Its just… I hope everyone else will be safe..."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone's following me."

"Someone?"

"He keeps showing up and disappearing. I don't know what he wants. He showed up before in the woods, and then in the inn…"

Enyo squinted in thought.

Kaz stared. "Uhm… who? What'd he look like?"

Frisk started to say, but the words wouldn't come.

I know what he looks like, don't I?

I can say it.

Or will it matter?

… should I say it?

Wait.

Everyone is so still.

I can't have been thinking so long.

… what the heck? Its atleast been a minute.

I still can't-

Oh no.

 _I can't move._

Someone sighed behind her, and from the corner of her eye, a skeletal hand clapped her on the shoulder. "Kiddo," the blue jacket meandered around, a head or so taller than her. "There's something you gotta know about me." His gaze swung over the others, all still watching Frisk, some looking right through the skeleton. They hadn't noticed him. Hadn't moved.

With that same grin from before, he swung his gaze down to Frisks. "I don't exist. And I won't hesitate to make sure I stay that way. Got it? Blink if you read me."

Frisk blinked.

"Good," he nodded, "Now since I'm here," he held a claw over her heart, and it was like she was being pulled forward. The skeleton and Frisk looked down at the deep red glow between his claws. He was silent, but a puzzled look crossed his face. "Interestin'. No black spots…" He let go of the light, and it slammed back into Frisk's chest. She felt dizzy.

The skeleton looked her in the eye, his traveling up and down. "Quite a scar that."

 _I keep forgetting…_ through a dark haze, she saw the brief moments she was conscious in that dark world with that other skeleton.

"I know that look. You remember him, don't you?" the skeletons voice had gone low. "Normally he doesn't let that happen." He leaned back. "Don't listen to none of those ghosts 'cause they'll just get you into trouble. Which means you'll have ta' deal with me." His left eye flashed blue at her as he turned away, and waved a claw over his shoulder. "Stay out of the shadows. See ya, kid."

A whirling of blue steam and the skeleton was gone.

The release made Frisk jerk and stumble.

Enyo caught her. "Hey, you okay?"

Frisk was quiet, moved away, and staggered down to sit on the tarp.

Cautiously, Enyo grabbed the coat and slung it over Frisks' shaking shoulders. She sat down next to her. "I just don't know what in the world I'm doing here…"

"Hangin out with us?" Enyo suggested.

Frisk grinned, but she drew her knees up close and buried her face in her arms.


	20. Shower thoughts

20 Shower Thoughts

After a while, Frisk unfolded herself and zipped up her coat.

The park was closing down. People were going home, and the fire girl was nowhere to be seen.

Frisk shivered. No wonder it was getting cold. She flexed her fingers. They were numb.

E nyo started talking with her friends. Everyone but her was sweating and exhausted. Huh. She had been there the whole time? She'd been so quiet. Until now atleast. She and Kaz were exchanging challenges for the next time they met up.

"Alright, catch you guys later!" Enyo waved to the group jogging away. "Oookay," she stretched as Frisk stood herself up. "Ready to go?"

With a nod, Frisk stepped into stride with Enyo as they left the park.

"Sorry I kind of freaked out earlier. I didn't mean to take you away from your friends."

"If I was still with a friend, I didn't get taken away," Enyo smirked at her.

"Wow," Frisk grinned a little. "Thanks."

"Look… I know we've just met, but I really do want to be your friend. Worlds a really lonely place, and I know you being new here you haven't got too many. So… uhm… guess… if you need to get something off your chest, I'll be there to listen. Got me?" her voice had grown soft as she'd said the words.

"…I'll keep you in mind, then."

…

Rachel to say the least was not very pleased at the late time which the two strays arrived, but "What should I expect? Go clean yourselves up and you can warm up the food in the fridge."

"Will do," Enyo skipped up the stairs.

"You alright, Frisk?"

"Huh? Oh," Frisk stopped at the stairwell to face Rachel standing in the dining room doorway. "I'm okay." She couldn't help but gulp a little though. Rachel seemed to have noticed. "Its just really different… I'll be fine."

Rachel hesitated, but gave a kind smile. "Don't push yourself too hard."

Half an hour later Enyo and Frisk were eating at the table. Mac and cheese, potatoes, and carrots.

There was a small tv on the counter set to the news station. "As you can see, tomorrow will have a high chance of burying you alive…"

"As usual," Enyo said nonchalantly, standing. "Done?"

Frisk let Enyo take her plate, and Enyo went to the sink to wash them. After the first plate was clean, Enyo said, "You don't have to wait for me. You can go on and do your thing."

"… I don't know what my thing is, to be honest." Frisk mumbled.

"Think about it in the shower."

With a silent nod, Frisk scooted back and meandered into the laundry room- where the showers were next to them. Monsters of all shape and form bustled past her about their business, though there weren't very many. She stepped aside as a tall one walked past her. Some monsters stared, but Frisk could tell they were making an effort to look away.

 _They'll probably not stop staring for a little while… I better learn to ignore it._ Her feet plopped against the wet floor as she approached the stalls. Wet fur curled in small puddles outside. There might have been some scales mixed in.

Two stalls away, a monster about a half foot taller than Frisk walked out wrapping her chocolate brown hair up with a grey towel. Four pink eyes on a wide fox like face looked the humans way, and two of them blinked in surprise. "Hiiii?" the voice almost sounded like a shrill pitched howl, and she awkwardly picked her away over the slick floor to the laundry room. Four long monkey like tails sporting small black spikes followed after her.

Frisk approached a stall, and stopped. She almost smacked her head on the door. _What am I doing? I need clothes!_

Feeling a little red, she left the room. It took her a moment to get past the traffic of all the other monsters upstairs thundering through the hallways with playful shouts and tackles. Two smallish voices called behind her, and moments later two small hands caught the shirt on her shoulders and some mouse shaped person in a red shirt vaulted over her head like some extreme leap frog game. Another mouse in a blue shirt leapt after them on all fours. They came and went so fast they were barely more than blurs. _Did I just get run over by mice?_

Making a lunge for her door she threw herself inside and closed it behind her. Somehow, it was a lot quieter now; she could even hear her footsteps.

She hadn't expected much to be in any of the drawers, in fact many of them were empty, but the one closest to her waist was full of clothes. Slack blue pants and a soft pinkish long sleeve looked promising enough. Looked close enough to her size… she hoped. After exploring the drawers a little more, Frisk made her way back downstairs.

There weren't many monsters left in the room… but she was glad it wasn't empty. She swiped a towel from one of the cabinets and picked a stall. _If he dares tear the soul from my chest again…_ the thought made her dizzy with fear so she had to lean on the stall. _But why did he do that? He seemed relieved almost after… agh… whatever that was he saw. What does he want? What does he know about me?_ She puzzled over his next words she remembered. _He doesn't like the ghosts or the skeleton in the darkness. He wants me to stay away from them… ha, no arguments here. Wow… he could have really hurt me when he- froze me like that. But he let me go…? He's just like the others, always watching me!_ She frowned. _But I've seen him more than them. … Is he keeping them away?_

She gave a long and tired sigh. _What drama I get dragged into?_

Frisk patted herself dry and slipped into her new clothes, really hoping she wouldn't have to hold them up as she went back upstairs. Thankfully, Rachel's sewing was on point. The clothes were very snug, and also very warm. Rubbing her hair dry, she left the stall feeling warmed and refreshed. Making her way out, she ditched the towel in a basket, but someone stopped her.

"Frisk?"

"Yeah?" it was a badger girl, dragging a mop across the floor.

"Just making sure I knew your name," she said with a grin. "I'm really forgetful sometimes. I didn't get to say hi to you earlier at breakfast."

"Its fine. What's your name?"

"I'm Halle! Hey, did you ever get any lunch? I haven't seen you all day."

"I… guess I didn't. I had dinner though. I was out with Enyo at the park."

The badger rolled her eyes. "Oh boy. She'll wear you out," she laughed.

"Don't I know it. As soon as we got there we ran laps around the park. I almost beat them."

"Them?"

"Some of the others there that race Enyo."

She stared, as though given a true mystery. "How are you alive?"

"Uh… I'm… I was… I wanted to win," Frisk shrugged.

The badger nodded, swishing a long black tail that looked like a giant feather duster. "That's amazing. Well, I can't run very far or fast, but I can walk for a long time. Anyways… I've got to clean this place up before the boys come in. Nice to get to talk to you though!"

"Thanks!" Frisk waved as she left.

"And next time Enyo decides to drag you off again, pack a snack!"


	21. Breaking in the new room -life slice

21 breaking in the new room

The blankets were snug, sleep was on the horizon, and yet there was one problem.

There were whisperings behind the door.

"She's all alone, just go ask her!" … it sounded suspiciously like Enyo.

The door yanked open to reveal Enyo and several other smaller monsters peering in beside her… The ferret monster, Alcina practically fell into the room and stumbled to catch herself, "Wha- hey hi sorry we were just-"

"Want to have a sleep over?" Enyo finished.

It took a moment to process, and even though she was perfectly fine with being by herself, Frisk found herself saying: "Suuure?"

"Awesome, because we were going to have one anyways!" Enyo waltzed in.

Then it seemed all the girls of the orphanage were piled in the room at her feet.

"Hi!"

"Hello!"

"I'll have the corner."

"There isn't really much room, so I'll go back to my bed after a while." A opossum said.

"You could fit in a drawer, Sozo!" another opossum?

"Talyn, I would prefer not to be mistaken for a sweater and trapped again, thank you very much."

Enyo sat on her spread blanket with an elbow on her pillow to prop up her head. "Its really plain in here. Need a rug or something. Arie!"

A red merecat with 6 limbs jumped as she peaked into the room. "I haven't even come in yet, Enyo!"

"I heard you." -Enyo

"Through this noise?!" - Merecat

"Have you got anything for Frisks' room?" - Enyo

"Oh I'm fine, you don't have to-" Frisk waved her hands apologetically. She gawked at the sight of all who had gathered. _Am I ever going to get to sleep tonight?_

Arie grinned shyly. "Don't worry about it, I have a few extra things," she said as she left.

Under the shadow of the dresser to the right of the room were two opossum with big white eyes, bushy ears, thin black furry tails. They were watching a small game screen intently. _Is that a PSP?_

"Flash step!" -Talyn

"Wrong game! Not even!" -Sozo

"Dodge then!" -Talyn

"Agh- I did! He still got me!" -Sozo

"Oooooh! Click O! circle circle he's gonna-" - Talyn

The one holding the game drooped in defeat and they both sat in silence.

"Isn't that the fifteenth time?" - Talyn

"You've been counting too, huh?"

"He's scarier than Golbez." - Talyn

"Are you fighting Jecht?" Frisk looked ready to pounce.

The opossum exchanged glances. "Yeah?" -Sozo

She held out a hand. "Want some help?"

Without a word they handed over the psp and got up on the bed beside her.

"Level 20? Should be enough. What moves have you got equipped? Oh- boy. Gimme a sec. See, you should equip this one because it'll reduce the damage you take when he dashes at you and then this one for piercing…"

Five minutes later and all the monsters were gathered up on Frisks bed as she blocked, countered, and attacked the quick enemy.

"How can she even see what's going on?" -Sozo

"Them reflexes tho." - Talyn

Sozo was slack jawed.

Soon the victor, Frisk handed the console back to Sozo with a smile.

"I will never wash this thing again." -Sozo

"Please get the smudges off the screen," Frisk laughed. "Hope that helped you out."

"It did! I've been level grinding for two days!" -Sozo

"You don't need to really do that. You just need to check out your equipment and check the numbers to see if they improve your character enough."

"I never really liked looking at that stuff because it looked complicated…" -Sozo

"Its not really. You just pay attention to… here let me see. Just look at these two right here. Those are the most important."

"… Oh. Okay. I can remember that. Thanks!" -Sozo

"I found something, but its kinda pink…" Arie returned to the room with a sort of rolled up scroll. She let it unroll and it revealed some tribal looking designs. It looked like it told a story. "Its been on my shelf for a while, there's no more room to hang it…" she looked up at everyone piled on Frisks' bed. "What'd I miss?"

"Frisk kicked butt." -Enyo

Sozo waved the psp and hissed in an awe: "She plays video games!"

Arie rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "They'll love you forever now. What have you done?"

Frisk shrugged smugly. "I don't think I'll ever be able to hide liking to play video games."

"We'd never ask you to. Where do you want this?"-Arie

"Oh, I don't really know…" -Frisk

"Hmm… How about over your bed beside the window? Just to keep it out of the way of any furniture or anything like that." She folded up on the floor cross legged. "Tara, do you know where the nails are?" -Arie

"Yep!" a green furred skunk like monster with pink stripes jumped off the bed.

"Could you get one? And the hammer?" -Arie

"On my way!" Tara rushed out of the room.

"Hey, Sarah, knock on the wall for me over there?" Enyo called to a squirrel with four fangs.

"Sure!"

Several knocks later, Enyo stopped her, "Keep your hand there."

Tara was back a moment later.

"Finally!" Sarah exclaimed.

Talyn quirked her nose skeptically at the squirrel. "You've barely been standing for a second."

"I don't like sitting still!"

"You've been watching video games though." -Talyn

"I was occupied with something interesting! Now I'm just touching a wall!" -Sarah

Several others got off the bed so Arie could climb up. "Move over, I got it." She held the nail to the wall, made a slight tap with the small hammer, and hung the tapestry. "Done," Arie got down. "Taraaaaa, could you take this back for me?"

"I guessssss," Tara took the hammer and lumbered sleepily out of the room.

Arie made herself comfy next to Enyo, and sighed. "Hows it going guys? Tired yet?" she looked between everyone.

"Just a little," Sozo said through a yawn.

Three others yawned at that.

"Why is it so contagious!?" a fox yawned. "Just thinking about it!"

Enyo's jaw tightened and then she said: "Because you've got to eat your green beans."

"That makes absolutely no sense at all-" the fox yawned again. "ooookay, I'm going to bed."

"The secret would be revealed to you if only you ate your green beans!" Enyo called after the fox as she shuffled out of the room.

A soft plop shook the bed as Frisk fell back on her pillows.

"Sleepy?" -Talyn

"Only because Enyo had be running around the park today," Frisk smirked.

"Whoa there, I didn't tell you to outrun me."

"No way." Arie was blank faced.

"Ha, really! She did! She was a bird flying past me!"

"I have got to see this," gives Frisk a mirthful look.

"Oh no," Frisk sat herself up, "I'm sleeping in tomorrow."

"Aaaaaaaw," Enyo groaned, "But I was going to take you shoppinnnggg oh well…"

The room was quiet until five seconds later and it was rippling with laughter.

"Seriously, I wanted to pick out some things for you." -Enyo

Unable to really help staring, Frisk just did. "You mean it? Really?"

"I do!" -Enyo

"Isn't it supposed to snow tomorrow?"

"It snows everyday here," Enyo smiled.

"Are there clothes my size?" -Frisk

"They have clothes everyone's size," Arie shrugged. "But there's a tailor there who can tweak things if we need. No biggie."

"Sweet."

A knock at the door made everyone jump. Rachel leaned in, shooting looks at all of them. "Yer a bit loud."

"Sorry! We were just breaking in Frisks new room." -Enyo

"I can see that," Rachel glanced around at the mess of blankets and pillows. "Y'all need some sleep, here? Or you won't wake up in time for breakfast."

"We will," Enyo waved. "Night."

"G'night," Rachel shut the door quietly.

Enyo lowered her voice. "So who wants to play some more Disidia and see who drops tired first?"


	22. Clothes, biscuits, YAY! -life slice

22 CLOTHES SHOPPING THE MALL BISCUITS YAY

Enyo: Friiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssskkkkkkk!) (over enthusiastically shook Frisks' bed)

Some monsters had evidently fallen out of bed and were complaining.

Frisk: *flailed and jumped awake* What?!

Enyo: Get dressed!

Frisk: Why.

Enyo: Breakfast, and then we're going shopping!

Frisk rolled over, yawned: buuuut I waaaan sleeeeeep…

Enyo: No, none of that. We're going! Come on! Don't make me get a snowball.

Frisk rolled back over to glare up at Enyo.

Enyo smirked: Don't think I won't.

Frisk: You better not, or I'll throw one back.

Enyo: You'll have to chase me outside. And by that time my plan will have succeeded.

Frisk continues to glare.

Enyo: I'm not wrong, am I?

Frisk grumbled through pillows.

Enyo: Up up.

Frisk rolled away her covers and hopped out of bed, but nearly tripped over a golden tail: YEEP!

Sarah: …. Yooooooooooowwww….. *groaned, lying in front of Frisks bed, halfway stuffed under it.

Frisk stared: How long have you been there?

Enyo: She was there when I woke up too, she likes the floor.

Sarah: Cold floor, smooth floor, good floor… *mumbled incoherently*

Frisk: I'm kind of tempted to see you wake her up.

Enyo: Sure. I do this all the time. *stooped down, scooped Sarah up under the stomach and tossed her up in the air onto the bed.

Sarah flailed, and by the time she crashed onto the bed her eyes were wide and staring into space. Her fur stood up on end in complete fright: E-E-Enyo… That is soooo unfair… I'd finally gotten to Metta's stage and then-

Enyo: Your dream got that far?

Sarah squenched her eyes shut and laid her ears flat: And then you jumped onto the stage and kidnapped me and here I am awake!

Enyo: You got farther though, didn't you? Good job. One day you'll fight me off.

Sarah wailed and cried into the sheets: He was so pretty!

Enyo pat Frisk on the shoulder and walked out: Remember: cloooothes! (she hovered at the doorway, looking out the hall, then back) Goja just got out of the bathroom, so if you want to change in there, hurry out. K?

Frisk: Okaaaay…. *yawned and stretched, shuffled over to her drawers for a soft yellow sweater with white stripes, and jean pants with flowery embroidery on the pockets*

Enyo: See you downstairs! *clapped on the doorframe as she left*

Frisk closed her drawers and stared at the nobs: You do this everyday?

Sarah: … Well I wish I dreamed about him every morning…

(Enyo can be heard in the background while other months groan in dismay: Rise and shine!)

Frisk: That's… not what I… okay. *shuffled out of the room, but stopped to say* You probably should get up though, becauuuse if not, she'll be back.

(monsters complained while Enyo slammed the door of another room and startled everyone awake: Come get your biscuits!)

Sarah: She'll always come back. She's Enyo.

Frisk: *nodded, left*

After getting dressed, Frisk clattered down the stairs and joined everyone at the breakfast table. They seemed to be in high spirits, although some were salty about how Enyo had woken them up.

Enyo: I got you here in time to get biscuits before they were all gone. *smirked while slicing a biscuit in half and drabbing the center with butter*

Fran: You got us here in time to start the fight which would determine who got biscuits.

Enyo: There'd be enough if some people only ate one.

Goja: Impossible. *took a bite of black berry jelly biscuit*

 _(Note: Goja looks like: sleek black fur, white eyes, one white dot between eyes, short nose, sharp fangs, white claws, two tails. Short back legs, long lower arms, but long in body.)_

Rachel: Well I'm glad ya'll like 'em. But Enyo's right! (voice rose) Y'all should share! Ey, did Frisk get one?

Frisk had her elbow propped up on the table, where she'd been leaning her head, and when she looked away, Enyo plopped a biscuit in her palm. Frisk looked at the biscuit, and then at Rachel: Yeah.

Rachel: You make sure you get that Jelly there.

Goja: Good stuff. *nodded in pure bliss*

Frisk grins: Sure will.

Enyo: Oh hey, Ray, me, Alcina and Arie are taking Frisk out for clothes today. Anyone else wanna go shopping? Halle? You wanna go?

Halle: Uuuuh… I don't have much to…

Enyo: No prob. I can get you something.

Halle: Uh…

Enyo: Cooome oooooon, get outa the houuuuse come with us and hang out.

Halle grinned shyly: Alright.

Enyo: Perfect. Hey,

Rachel: Yeah? Y'all be safe, ya hear?

Enyo called over the noise of the table: barely.

Rachel: How long are y'all goin ta be out?

Enyo: Probably only till 12. I've gotta be at the field by 1.

Rachel: Oh, you gotta be there today, hmm?

Enyo: Well, considering one of the horses apparently broke a fence last night and escaped, yeah.

Rachel: Oh!

Enyo: Fal sent me a text earlier. Said she had some of the boys patch up the fence, but I'm going to head out later and check the rest of the fence for them. And then, you know, the usual farm stuff.

Alcina: Did Karen get the horse?

Rachel: Same one?

Enyo: Yeah. It was Chocolate. She found him in that grove with all the big rocks.

Alcina: So you're going to do some repairs and scold your horse?

Enyo munched some bacon: Sure am.

Frisk: You work on a farm?

Enyo nods: Sure do. And it's a big one.

Frisk: That's cool! I've never been to one.

Enyo stops eating and stares at Frisk: To a farm?

Frisk: Yeah. I've seen pictures and stuff, but I've never had the opportunity. I… lived in a city.

Enyo: Well, I'll put that on the list of things I've gotta show you some time.

Frisk: That would be really awesome. I'd… like to see a horse too.

Enyo gave Rachel a glance of pure shock and went silent.

Rachel gave a big sigh, chuckled and shook her head.

Alcina prodded Frisk: Enyo is about to go all teacher mode on you. Watch out.

Frisk chuckled and went back to eating.

Authors note: Enjoy the fluff. While it lasts.


	23. Tardis Bus -life slice

23 … tardis bus.

Setting: Alcina, Enyo, Frisk, Halle, Arie are traveling down a snow road. There are quite a few people around.

Enyo walked really fast. Or perhaps Frisk was just really slow.

Enyo: I thought you could keep up, Frisk! (calling over her shoulder)

Frisk: … My speed hasn't loaded yet today.

Enyo: ooooh so you've got like a timer, or something?

Frisk: Yes.

Enyo: Hmmm I'd like to test that out later.

Frisk: …

Amused, Alcina looked back at Frisk dragging farther behind: What do you call that, Frisk?

Frisk: … speedmatrix 9000.

Enyo: Does it come in colors?

Frisk: only in red.

Halle kept pace just behind Frisk, but she was breathing a little heavy.

Frisk: You okay?

Halle: Maybe…?

Arie watched Halle with concern: We'll be getting to a bus soon.

Halle gave a thumbs up but said nothing.

Five minutes later they approached a long grey building with a tall, long white bus outside. It had black tinted windows, and instead of tires it had a tank track.

Frisk stopped while they were still farther away to take in the sight of the vehicle, not realizing she was gaping a little. That was a huge bus.

Enyo was approaching the doors with Arie and Alcina: Short stuffs get over here!

Frisk hurried forward, and Halle groaned in dismay as she tried to pick up her legs.

Arie and Alcina had taken seats already, but Enyo had stayed near the entrance to talk to the driver… an antlered, brown furred, 6 eyed elephant.

Enyo leaned on a seat: Arrrreee you passing by Snowfort?

Driver: About 15 minutes, yeah.

Enyo: Awesome.

Driver: Those your friends?

Frisk and Halle were struggling up the tall steps of the bus.

Enyo smirked: Yeah. You know they answer to short stuffs?

Driver: Need a rest you two?

Enyo: Something about a speedomatrix 9000 needing to charge up.

Driver: Hah! Might wanna get that fixed soon then if you're traveling around with Enyo.

Halle: Uaaagh.

Driver: To keep up with her you have to be at 100%

Enyo put space between her thumb and pointer finger to show the smallest amount of space: Atleaaaaast just ninety percent!

Frisk: I'm at least at seventy percent.

Enyo: You can't fool me you sixty-nine percenter!

Enyo turned down the isle to move out of the way for Hall and Frisk, even though, there was plenty of space for two or three monsters to walk past each other down the isle. It was bigger on the inside than outside.

Frisk followed after Enyo, but she couldn't help looking away. There were so many different kinds of people! It was terribly rude, but sometimes she couldn't help staring a little. It made her wonder if she should slap herself and see if she was asleep. Although she wasn't sure how that would prove anything, considering she still felt pain in her sleep.

Arie and Alcina's voices could be heard now, but they'd walked in on the end of a conversation about light bulbs. Or… maybe it was a joke? They were laughing.

Arie: Sup? (giggles, struggling to contain herself)

Alcina: (snorts) hahaha!

The seat they sat in faced another one that was empty. Frisk sat next to Arie, while Halle and Enyo took the empty seat.

Enyo: You look so white, Frisk.

Frisk: Uh… yeah?

Enyo: You look so surprised, sorry!

Frisk looked up and down the bus for the thousandth time: I see something and someone new every day here.

Enyo: Think you'll ever run out of things to see?

Frisk: … I'm having doubts!

Enyo: That's what I'm talking about. You ever seen a talking rock before?

Frisk: A… are we talking about a radio?

And then everyone in the cubicle broke down in laughter.

Except the person who didn't understand who she'd just compared to a radio.


	24. The Underground Mall -life slice

24 The Underground Mall

Frisk: (stares along the length of the bus, still unable to process how BIG this thing was)

Setting: The bus softly traverses the snowy path, and finally stops. The bus driver hollers something, but its too far to hear. A few others from the bus shuffled off as well.

Except to Enyo, who jumping up and rushing down the isle: First!

Alcina: Enyo!

The girls surged to their feet and raced along the isle, skipped down the bus stairs. Luckily, The floor was wide enough, nobody's feet- or hooves, threatened to trip anyone. Though there were a few others getting off who made way for the band to run ahead.

Arie: Ow, watch the tail, Al!

Alcina: Which one?

Arie: Both of em, darn it!

Alcina: Pick them up next time.

Setting: There were a lot of people walking about here. Strange snow mobiles parked in a lot and drove two and fro.

Alcina nudges Arie and leaps onto the flattened snow road. They continued to run, racing toe and toe to a strip of buildings across from them about 30 feet away. They huffed for breath in the cold.

Alcina: Y-you'll never beat me!

Arie: Stop try-ing to reas-sure yourself! I ca-n he-ar you sha-king!

Alcina: Be-cause I'm fr-reezing!

Enyo leaned on a pillar of the mall and raised her hands to call at them: Keep trying Al, you're almost a foot ahead of her! Shame tho, even with the extra arms, she's still beating you. Little bookworm needs to come run with us more.

Alcina: Gah! Did you really just-

Arie: I can't tell if she insulted or praised-

Enyo called to Frisk and Halle: You're gonna turn into popsicles if you don't pick up the pace! Hot chocolate's gonna get cold too.

Frisk began to walk faster):

Halle: Huh?

Frisk: Chocolate.

Halle: Hey wait!

Enyo congratulated the slow pokes with grace and crowded her friends (Gasping for breath and freezing,)

through the mall doors.

Frisk says to Enyo: Chocolate?

Enyo smiles and points up a flight of 20 or so stairs: Above that.

Halle wails in despair: How did I get caught up in this.

Frisk: It'll be worth it in the end!

The group makes their way up the stairs more slowly, allowing for passerby)

At the top, there was a massive stretch of tannish marble tile, and between two walkways was a wide strip where a café had made itself at home. Little circular tables with dark hazel wood, and black lacy metal chairs with red seats were scattered around. Plenty of monsters occupied the seats, sipping from steaming coffees, reading on their tablets, while some wrote on laptops.

Halle perked up at the smell, and Frisk gave her a curious look.

Frisk: Have you ever had coffee?

Halle: I've never had the opportunity. Is that what I smell?

Alcina latches onto Halle's shoulders and propels her to the small stand where the coffee was served from.

A pleasant looking elephant dude stood there and waved to Alcina: Hey! New minion?

Alcina: Oh yes. Eric, she's never had coffee before.

Eric laughed: We must fix this.

A calico cat girl with a hat with a logo of the café looked over at them: Oh! I can help! You seem like you'd like caramel.

Halle: Huh? (nervously stammers)

Alcina: Get it!

Halle: O-kaay?

Calico: It's a good first coffee at least. I'll whip you up one. If you don't like it, I can get you something else. (smiles) Names Kali by the way. And this is Eric.

Eric: Hi! (waves)

Halle: Yeah. (brightens) My name is Halle.

Kali scribbles Halle's name on a cup) Cool.

Eric: What's everyone else want?

Enyo: This addict wants chocolate, (juts an accusing finger at Frisk) so Café Mocha for her, and I'd like one too.

Arie: Peppermint Mocha for me!

Alcina: Green tea please!

Eric: Got it! (fnishes scribbling on a notepad)

Enyo: Throw in a sweets tray, would you?

Kali: Fancy today, huh?

Enyo: Not everyday I get to treat my girls. (smiles)

Kali: Real nice of you, Enyo! Well do our best!

Enyo: thanks, Kal.

The band brought together some tables and chairs and sat together giggling and rambling about what was in store.

Alcina: The shoes there actually fit!

Halle: really?

Alcina: Yeah! We should go there sometime. I'm in need of some new boots. The sole is trying to come off on these.

Enyo: how long have you had those now?

Alcina: Four years now I think…

Enyo: Well Frisk needs some good snow boots now too so we're getting shoes today.

Alcina: Oh yessssssssss

Arie: Well I'm good on shoes for now, but thanks! I think at the moment I just need a good tail wrap…

Alcina: I can show you a place.

Arie: Is there a Faran's here?

Alcina: Yeah, just down through here, left, annnd three stores down.

Arie: Sweet. My tail has been getting so cold lately. I had a wrap last year I know, but I guess I lost it somewhere.

Alcina: I've lost mine a lot before too. Its infuriating! Its not something that isn't like its small enough to loose either!

Halle had her tail thrown across her lap, her arms laying overtop the dark and thick fur so that they disappeared. She looked content.

Alcina and Arie watched her miserably.

Arie: I guess you don't have much need of a tail wrap, do you Halle?

Halle: I am fluff.

Enyo slid off her coat and draped it over her chair. She huffed: Honestly, its kinda hot for me.

Arie: You have the shortest fur out of all of us!

Enyo: Body heat. (she pointed at Frisk) Lets not forget furless over there.

Frisk: … Well I have some peach fuzz I guess. And I do have this! (she grabbed her hair)

Alcina scooted her chair over and inspected Frisk's hair.

Frisk: Can I help you?

Alcina poked her hair and gawked: iiit feels so weeeeird! Its like- plastic only not as wiry and smooth.

Frisk: Uh…

Alcina: its stretchy!

Frisk: OW!

Arie: Hey lemme see.

Frisk: What are you doing- ow hey! Stop stealing my hair, you've already got more than me!


	25. COFFEE boots and- cheese? life slice

25 COFFEEEEE and boots and- cheese?

It took a few trips from the two waiters, but eventually everyone had all their drinks, and to top everything off, a beautiful arrangement of sweets was slid between them. Frisk chose a fluffy looking cookie with chocolate syrup and marshmallow on it. Biting into the soft dough and sipping her mocha with it was absolute bliss. No one could stop thanking Enyo; she was too awesome.

The moment Halle took her first sip of coffee, she nearly gagged in shock and sat back to stare at the coffee.

Alcina: What? Is it okay? (worried)

Halle: (blinks) What have I been doing with my life when I could have had caramel in it?

After most of the treats were gone, and everyone was tired of sitting on their butts, they packed up the rest of the treats and scattered them into their own bags.

Enyo made a note to get Frisk a bag, and before Frisk could argue that, they all picked up and walked off the coffee spot strip.

Arie and Alcina split to look at tail wraps, and the others went to look at the shoes. They'd meet up again in the shoes. It would take that long.

Enyo: Haaaalle

Halle: Uh… what?

Enyo looked over he shoulders at Halle: You want some shooooes?

Halle: You really don't have to!

Enyo: Too late, you're getting shoes.

Halle: … okay?

Now humans already had enough variation of shoes because of the difference between children and men and women. BUT MONSTERS. There were so many different species with different kinds of feet it was insane.

Luckily, there seemed to be a system to help counter this: Many of the shoes were adjustable to age. There were latches and grooves along the sides of shoes that made them longer or shorter, and would lock in place if you flipped a switch to lay flay on the side. To get the switch though, you had to use very thin pliers to wedge between the shoe and the switch. It was to make it more difficult for random accidents to happen with the size switch snagging on something.

So finding Frisk's type of shoe wasn't too difficult because some monsters like Enyo actually had feet that resembled human feet. Although there were some that made extra toe room with a metal cup to catch claws that made them have to put back many a shoe.

It seemed boots no matter what end of the earth were difficult to find.

Enyo: Aha! If these don't fit, you're completely hopeless. (hands Frisk a box with light brown leather boots, zigzagging strings, and strong tooth on the heel and toes)

Frisk: These look pretty durable. (slips on the shoe, sits down on a bench while Enyo adjusts the size. Two notches down was the perfect fit.)

Enyo: Alright lets see! (steps back)

Frisk jumped up and jogged around in the shoes.

Frisk: Oooooh… you know I don't think I've ever had any human shoes that were as comfortable as these.

Enyo: Haha! Sure you aren't a monster?

Frisk: Pff maybe I'm just waiting for my horns to grow in.

Enyo: Maybe you're waiting for a growth spurt, shorty. (pats her head and walks on) Get the box, and lets show everyone.

Frisk nabbed the box and skipped after Enyo. Walking on these shoes was like walking on air.

Halle: Those look so good on you. Wow….

Enyo: You find anything yet?

Halle: Uh… no…

Enyo took one look around, went to a shelf and grabbed a shorter pair of black books with white rims, and gave them to Halle.

Enyo: Have you got something to wedge the latch?

Halle: No…

Enyo: Put them on and I'll adjust them.

Halle did so, and Enyo adjusted them, and when Halle stood she nearly fell over in them.

Enyo: Did I make them too tight?!

Halle: No- they're just- they're comfy.

Enyo: … okay? So you're good? No falling?

Halle: You have really good sense of shoes.

While they waited for the other two to show up, Enyo hunted for a pair of shoes for Alcina.

…

A few minutes later Arie and Alcina came through the entrance with wrapped tails. Arie had a reddish cloth with a decorative gold chain spiraling around it with little gems. Alcina had a pale pink wrap with a silver glittery cord cross wrapped around it. There were a few chains at the end of her tail with a few gems as well.

Enyo nodded in approval: Looks nice!

Frisk: Kinda makes me wish I had a tail to decorate.

Enyo had found a pair of pale pink shoes with grey lip at the bottom, and many buckles to Alcina.

Alcina: Whoa-hey- Enyo! Oh hey these are nice.

Enyo: sure are. Go try em.

Alcina: I sure will… (she tossed off her old shoes and used her own claws to flip the size switch.

Frisk stared, remembering how Enyo's arm had shook a little trying to move the size switch. Alcina had barely flicked that switch with her own claw. What were those things made of? Did they even chip?!

Alcina rolled her ankles and examined the shoes. Her tail rolled in pleasure: Yes. Thank you Enyo, I'll be taking these. Enyo: You're not going to look at anything else?

Alcina: Nope. I am very satisfied with these. (skips around) They're good.

Enyo smiled in pride at that: Great! Lets go get these checked out then. Oh you don't have to take them off, it'll be too much to take the boxes. They'll get the tags off for you.

Alcina to the cashier: Excuse me, do you have an old shoe bin here?

Cashier: We do actually, there's a metal shoot right over there? (points to the right of the desk) it goes into the basement.

Alcina: Does anyone want to give away their old shoes?

Frisk: sure. I can't really use these here, and I don't want to hold on to them all day.

Halle: hmm… I guess so.

Alcina: Wonderful, thank you! (runs to the shoot and tosses down the shoes)

Cashier: We have to do what we can to salvage everything; we can't take our resources lightly.

Alcina: Good. (nods with a smile) the shoeless ones will appreciate that.

Cashier: Thank you for coming! (waves) Enjoy your new shoes!

…

Enyo liked picking out things for her friends, and no one seemed to mind because she was just really good at finding what they needed- and what matched.

She got Frisk a nice durable backpack with so many pockets it was unreal. It seemed like it would pack a great amount. Although for what specifically it could have been used for might have been hiking…

The coat store was another matter. Frisk was so tiny, and there were so few coats that would fit her properly.

Enyo: We'll probably just need to give you several layers of sweaters to wear underneath and you'll be fine.

Frisk: That would probably work.

Enyo swiped a few sweaters off a rack and flung them at Frisk: Mediums. Changing rooms- uh- that way. (points down an isle)

Frisk dove into the changing room and went through the sweaters.

Browns, blues and reds seemed to be good colors for her.

Enyo: Hmm… (stroking chin) Those brown and white stripes look good.

Frisk: I like it!

Enyo: Yeah, I do too, I'm gonna get you another one.

Frisk: Uh- (about to protest, but Enyo had already grabbed the sweater and thrown it over her arm) okay.

…

After a while of walking and hunger pains, they found a massive food court and decided they all wanted sandwiches.

Alcina: I wonder if they have anything italian…

Enyo: I think they do. Halle, what are you looking for?

Halle: Not really sure…

Frisk stood back and looked up at the menu ahead of them. There was so much to choose from! And for a people stuck in the underground, it was pretty amazing for them to be able to mimic surface foods. And from all corners of the earth too… But… if they could get that information, why and how were they still here?

?: if you ask me, the teriyaki chicken is pretty good.

Frisk nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice. She refused to turn around.

Enyo's ears flicked a the voice, and she turned around: The Pun Man returns!

Sans: heya.

Enyo: Where have you been?

Sans: s'nowhere in particular. I've been driftin' around. *shrug*

Alcina: (watching Sans suspiciously)

Sans: (raises chin) Hey Al.

Alcina steps forward, toe to toe with Sans.

Frisk stepped back in worry.

Sans and Al lock eyes challengingly. San is still smirking.

Sans: do your worst.

Alcina: What is at the end of a rainbow?

Sans: W.

Alcina: You can see me in water, but I never get wet. What am I?

Sans: A reflection.

Alcina: What belongs to you but others use it more than you do?

Sans: Your name.

Alcina: Which word does not belong in the following list: Stop cop mop chop prop shop or crop?

Sans: Haha. Or. Come on Al, you can do better than that.

Alcina: What has a Heart but no other organs?

Sans: A deck of cards and a skeleton. Really? That the best you got?

Alcina: (speaks faster) A man is trapped in a room. The room has only two possible exits: two doors. Through the first door there is a room constructed from magnifying glass. The blazing hot sun instantly fries anything or anyone that enters. Through the second door there is a fire-breathing dragon. How does the man escape?

Frisk was lost after magnifying glass.

Sans: He waits until night time and then goes through the first door. Not a bad one.

Alcina: I am a ship that can be made to ride the greatest waves. I am not built by tool, but built by hearts and minds. What am I?

Sans: Friendship.

Alcina: Hmm. You pass. For now.

Sans: ya sure? No fire demons I have to fight?

Alcina: What, you chicken?

Sans: If I'm a chicken from Hyrule, heck yeah I'm a chicken.

Enyo had finished ordering: We kinda need to finish ordering, guys.

Sans: Yeah, sure. I'd hate to hold you up.

Alcina went to finish her order with Halle and Arie.

Enyo: You meet Frisk?

Sans: Frisk, huh? (turns to look at Frisk)

Frisk stares, very still and quiet: …

Sans: I'm Sans. Sans the Skeleton. Nice ta meet ya', Frisk. (holds out a hand)

Frisk: (slowly takes hand) Uh… ye-yeah-

*Pfffshhhhooooouuuugh*

Frisk recoiled backwards a few steps, and everyone nearby who'd heard burst out laughing.

Alcina: Sans! Did you just-!?

Sans: blame the skeleton, sure. (grinning broadly)

Frisk: What?! (frozen)

Halle: … has crashed.

Sans: (pats Frisk on the shoulder) You're okay. (winks at her with his left eye) Try not to jump outa your skin, there are enough skeletons runnin around here as it is. (quietly)

Frisk nodded.

Enyo: You want to catch some food with us?

Sans: hmm, as tempting as it sounds, I'm on a strict chilli dog diet.

Enyo: Oooh I "cheese" you then.

Sans: ayyyy (snaps phalanges at her and walks away) Catch you later new kid.

Frisk: … Sure?

Enyo pat Frisk on the back: You okay? (laughs)

Frisk: Y-yeah, he just uh- I mean…

Enyo: Never seen a skeleton monster before? His is an eccentric breed.

Alcina: You can say that again.

Enyo: Don't worry, he won't bite. He's a cool guy. He was the one who actually helped a lot of us find ms. Rachel.

Frisk: Huh?

Enyo: He looks out for the kids that don't have anywhere to go.

Frisk: Oh… that's… cool.

Enyo: Oh crap, you didn't get to order anything!

Frisk: woops.

Enyo: We'll blame the pun fiend later for distracting us. He's so good at that. (leads Frisk to the counter) What would you like?

Frisk: uhm… why not the teriyaki-whatsit.

…

(The cashier handed over a platter of everyone's sandwiches)

Enyo really liked meat, but she also needed her veggies. Halle liked her veggies, cheeses, and chicken. Alcina was particular about the combination of flavors, and the appropriate amount of veggies and meat. She complained about the lack of certain more nutritious ingredients that would be a lot healthier. Arie didn't really care as long as there was meat. And Frisk found the opinion of the scary skeleton to be of surprisingly good taste.


	26. THE FIERY GETAWAY -ACTION!-

26 THE FIERY GETAWAY (ACTION!)

Note: Silly you. You thought this was turning into a slice of life. Lets get back on track shall we ;3

After the sandwiches, Alcina took Frisk over to a phone store, for: Safety Reasons. You might need it. They joined back up with the group. They all looked pretty tired considering they'd been walking around for a few hours.

Halle was stuck to the table: This has all been pretty fun, but I kinda just wanna go home now and sleep.

Arie: We probably should wrap things up, honestly. You've got work, right?

Enyo: Yeah. I was wanting to take her to see the Rock man but we should be heading back.

Frisk: My feet do hurt a little bit. But this has been a lot of fun! Thank you so much!

Alcina gave Frisk a hug: You were a wonderful excuse to get coffee.

Arie: Alci!

Alcina smiled: It was really nice to get to know you, Frisk. You're a good kid.

Halle gave a big smile as she meandered over: This was pretty fun, and I don't mind the walk really.

Arie: Yup. Your cool. So- Uh- Enyo?

Enyo's behavior was nothing normal. Her spine and ears were perfectly straight, her eyes wide and locked on something. The others followed her gaze to see a glint of silver flickering through and over the crowd.

Frisk: Are those suits of armor?

Arie's breath drew thin: Knights?!  
Enyo: Everyone stand around Frisk!

Alcina: Oh I see them.

Frisk: What's going on?

Enyo: Shh! We gotta get out of here. (quietly begins to lead the girls away, lowering a little, looking left and right, sniffing and listening.)

Halle: What? How'd they track us?

Enyo: Probably the bus. There were a lot of people there. Maybe one of them was a Knight. We weren't cautious enough. We've been here too long.

Alcina: Enyo… the Great Hound is here!

Enyo: Shit. Come on, we're outa here. Sorry Frisk! This was not a part of the plan!

Frisk: What's going on?! (spies the Knights wheeling through the crowd, raising their helms as they seemingly sniffed the air, and bustled all the more to the place they had been a moment before. Monsters parted around them and stared in worry. Some of them towered over the monsters by a few feet.)

Enyo: Don't slow down. Those guys are out to get you.

Frisk: Y-yeah I see- but why?

Enyo: You're human, and we've got to protect you from them.

Alcina: We shouldn't be talking they could hear-

Enyo: Not through all this static. And nobody can beat my ears. Not even them. (she said with a hint of disdain)

Enyo led them in a speedwalk to the entrance, but there were too many people to go around to go at a consistent pace.

Arie: It's a good thing you're shorter than the average monster, or they might have spotted you already.

Enyo passes the corner to see them and spins on her heel back into everyone else: Not that way, not that way! *exhales*

Alcina: More Knights?

Enyo: More knights. New plan. Al. Whatchya got?

Alcina (turned and led them away down another series of halls): There's a back entrance. (Alcina guides them along, Enyo beside her watching) But how are we getting home? Making a dash for it? I mean it would probably be dangerous to wait for the bus to leave, and considering they probably found us through-

Sans: I could arrange something. (walks up beside the group out of nowhere)

Alcina jumped and exhaled through a hiss when she realized who it was.

Halle and Arie sprang forward with a yelp: Gyaaah Sans you! Don't- dooo- that!

Enyo: How? (she hadn't seemed bothered by the skeletons sudden appearance.)

Sans: Follow Al. She knows where to go. I'll meet back up with ya in a sec. (strides into the crowd)

Enyo watched him suspiciously): Okay. Be careful.

Sans waved over his head: Worry for the dogs. (he disappeared between two monsters in a flash of light)

…

Sans poofed out of the blue of the bathroom onto the backdoor entrance, bringing a phone to his ear.

Sans: Hey Grillbz, what's cookin'?

Grillby: the usual.

Sans: perfect. Hey, think you could whip up something special to go?

Grillby: Oh? Going somewhere?

Sans: Yeah, me and five others were thinking about the mall… you know, we were gonna take the entrance, but its too "stuffy", so we'll be taking the back door.

Grillby: Understood.

Sans hung up, spied through the mass of people to see the entrance.

Several powerful looking Knights stood before the doors, unmoving They wouldn't let anyone leave. They'd go as far as to shove people back and draw their swords a little. Some of the monsters went flying with a single bat of an arm.

Sans: Hoo, yeah, that's not smart. That's her squad though. (rests his back on a curve, opening a game on his phone.) Good ole tetris. (waves a hand over his phone screen, a blue flash of magic swirling to life) You guys are pretty strong, but lets see how fast you are in that armor. (he flicked his hand across the screen, launching the blue light across the hall, letting it swirl and manifest between the confused crowds until it took the form of a human. An exact blue copy of Frisk.)

As "Frisk" simply walks out of the crowd and looks up at a sign, the Knights spot her fairly quickly. No sooner as they surged forward, the human dashed away back into the crowd. It didn't take long for the small creature to dash between the monsters, but for the bulky knights, they were much slower. Even given how many monsters were flung aside or jumped from their wake.

The blue human "unlocked and opened" the door of the stairwell, followed a few paces behind by the Knights. So they weren't really too slow. No matter.

Once all the knights had gone down, the door handle lit with blue, slammed shut and locked.

A confused crowd meandered away, Sans scribbled away at the screen, utterly owning tetris.

The girls rounded the corner ten minutes later, some of them panting and shaking in fear. Halle was shaking, Arie's was hunched over with her ears back against her head, looking around her slowly. Enyo towered over them, listening and watching. Frisk just huddled between them, entirely confused. Surprisingly, the human seemed more composed than any of them. She looked more confused than scared. Well, next to Enyo. But her flight or fight response was pretty serious and methodical anyways. Panicking didn't make sense to her.

Sans: What took you so long? (Slides phone away into hoodie)

Alcina: They're an infestation. (hisses) so many detours…

Sans: Kiddo don't realize how dangerous it is to be here right now, huh?

Frisk: Kiddo? (looks at Sans with an odd mix of insulted confusion on her face) No. Why are Dog Knights looking for me?

Sans phone buzzed, and he checked it: Time to go. We'll explain in the ride.

Bursting with questions, the group followed the skeleton out the doors as a long black vehicle in Snowdins normal snow treads rolled onto the curb. The passenger's side black tinted window rolled down and a soft red candle light peered through- with shades on his -face? Wait- that was a person on fire.

Sans: Right on time.

Grillby: Hello! I hope you enjoyed your time at the mall.

Alcina: It was wonderful, aside from having to dodge the knights.

Arie: Grillby? (her shoulders slouched and she tilted her head in a confused way) You know its really weird seeing

you out of the bar.

Frisk: What is going on?! Thinks: The skeleton had a fire monster Sheaffer?

Sans: A fiery getaway. Now hop in before some grumpy knights getchya. (slides open the side door with relative ease, and leans on the side.)

(Halle and Arie piled into the back, Alcina and Frisk to the front row. It took guts for Frisk to step within arms reach of the skeleton. She expected him to grab her or something but he kept to himself and just gave her something close to a reassuring grin. She slid next to Al and hefted her backpack onto her lap.)

Enyo gives Sans a high five: Thanks man.

Sans: Anytime.

(Enyo climbed in, and sat beside Frisk while Sans rolled the door shut.

(Frisk noted that the vehicle roof though was a good foot above Enyo's head even sitting down, and there was still room enough between them all on the seats for another person. Frisk reclined a little. Ooooh the leg room… and the chairs were pretty comfortable too.)

Grillby: Buckle up.

Sans slid into the passenger seat: Better listen to him, (buckling) Under these cool glasses is a fiery road rage monster.

Grillby moved the car forward: Don't smother my reputation, Sans. How rude of you especially when we have a new guest.

(vehicle cruises through the parking lot)

Sans: Pff. Oh yeah, Frisk, this is Grillby. He's a fire monster chef at a chill place on the other side of town. Grillby, this is Frisk… She's a human being kidnapped by her friends.

Grillby: It is a pleasure to meet you, Frisk. You must stop by sometime and say hello. I will prepare a fantastic dish.

Frisk: You too? And yeah… maybe sometime. Thank you for picking us up.

Grillby: Not a problem at all, miss. (pulls right onto the main road, and floors it)

Halle clung to her seat: Aaaah!

Enyo: Uhm… isn't this unnecessary?

Grillby: Not when you have five hungry Knights waiting for their orders for over 20 minutes. They tend to get quite cranky. Its bad for the tables and chairs. I do hate having to replace everything when they arrive.

Sans: Oooh, really? They are an infection like you said, Alcina.

Alcina: I think I'm going to be sick…

Sans: So Frisk! (Sans unbluckled and propped himself over his seat to look back at you)

Grillby: Really? Honestly, Sans, you don't have to get up.

Sans rolled his shoulders and eye lights before continuing explaining to Frisk: You have mean scary Dog Knights chasing after you. Do you know what that means?

Frisk: … No. (annoyed)

(The vehicle jerks and weaves through traffic, and while everyone sways a little, Sans is a little more composed over his seat.)

Sans: Reasonable. So first: Why are there Knights?

Frisk: This place has a monarchy system here?

Sans: Yep. Do you know what that means?

Frisk: There's a King and Queen?

Sans: There's a King Asgore. (he held up a corrective finger) He's a scary lion monster dude with a red trident.

Frisk: Okay. Who's he?

Sans: The King.

Alcina: Sans. (she gave a weary laugh) Please.

Sans: Okay okay. (he waved a hand) So long story short, all the monsters underground are stuck here. Right?

Frisk noted that Sans liked to make a lot of hand movements while he spoke.: Yeah..?

Sans: But you've seen we got a lot of your surface stuff. Right? (he waved his hand at her)

Frisk: Yeah…? (Thinks: That hand waving is a little distracting…)

Sans: We got all that from the dump and the internet. We can't leave the underground. Its not as simple as digging a hole and climbing up.

Frisk: … But I fell through a hole to get in here…?

Sans: Nope. You didn't.

Frisk: I did.

Sans: Trust me. We're way down. (he pointed down) If you'd fallen from the surface… (he pointed and looked up) Do you have any idea how very dead you would be? You'd be as flat as a pancake, kiddo.

Frisk: (Thinks: Well… I guess he has a point there. It might have looked like I fell, and technically I did, but not the way I think I did… I guess?) How did I get here then?

Sans: Magic.

Frisk: (Thinks: That smug grin stays on your face when you say stuff like that is kinda annoying… oh. Magic. That's how I fell. There's the gap in the fall. Somehow that makes sense.) … Oh.

Alcina: Oh?

Sans: heh. What?

Frisk: Magic. I've been talking to a skeleton and a fire monster. I don't think that can exactly be explained scientifically.

Sans: Lots of things are scientific. Magics just unexplained to human science because its forgotten or unknown territory. But trust me. There's a science to it. You guys just haven't figured it out yet.

Arie: My brain hurts! (calling from the back seat) Agh! (leans forward) Sans was explaining we can't leave. The reason we haven't busted out of this place yet is like he said: Magic. There's like a wall of it all around our world that keeps us from passing. But for some reason you guys can pass through- along with items and the internet, but not that often. Especially humans. You. I mean.

Sans: Stop confusing the kid, Arie! (he chided her jokingly)

Arie: (guffaws, and sits back) Me confusing her?

Frisk: So I fell through a magic wall to get here. And my being a human has something to do with why your king wants me?

Enyo: Sort of.

Alcina: Its kind of like… (waves hands, as though trying to grasp how to say it) Humans are the key to breaking that wall. Like- supposedly if there are enough humans here, the wall will shatter.

Frisk: … How does that work?

Everyone: Magic.

Frisk nodded in silent acceptance of that.

Sans: Doesn't matter. What does matter is that it pretty much destroys all your freedom, and we go to the surface.

Frisk: … Are you saying I'd die?

Sans shrugged, and looked away: Hmm… pretty much. Yeah. Although you humans are pretty weird, because your souls linger around for quite a bit.

Frisk: What's so different between human and monster souls?

Sans: Eh. That's a lesson for another time.

Frisk: Alright. So how about this: What's so bad you're freed from the underground?

Enyo and Alcina: Very bad.

Alcina: We get along pretty well, right?

Frisk: Of course!

Alcina: Now you're just one human… "invading" our territory. We don't have to shove over much room for you. But if we were to go to the surface… the thousands of us down here… we'd… be quite imposing. Even with as much bigger the surface is. New neighbors can always be something hard to deal with no matter where you are.

Frisk: uhm…

Sans: Y'guys are too complicated. (waves a hand) If we go to the surface it'll mean a fight for the land. Nobody wants a war. But that's what Asgore has resolved himself for. That's what all the Knights are training for. You see how tough they are?

Frisk: I saw them throw people. (she cringed) I hope I'm never that person in their claws.

Sans: Nobody wants to go fight; but again, Asgore plans to attack your world. And for anyone who'se left behind here, if humans were to launch an attack on us, we'd be isolated and in a hole already we'd be screwed.

Frisk: That… sounds really scary.

Sans: Yeah. Thing is, Monsters do have an upper hand here- although whether or not it can overcome your technology- and believe me, we do have our own technology. Regardless, its just better to not use it because it got us down here in the first place.

Frisk: The magic?

Alcina: The magic.

Sans: So, now you know. Don't get caught by the Knights, or it will be war. We'll do our best to keep you out of the way. Oh, and as extra incentive to keep yourself hidden: You're the last one they need.

Frisk: H-how many are there?!

Sans: You're the 7th.

Frisk: You guys really haven't had that many, have you? (sigh)

Sans: We've seen them come and go, actually… in our lifetimes. In that past 5 years, we've lost 6 kids. Rachel all her kids watching out for you humans because the first one that came got along well with em. They're all looking out for you, understand? Trust em. They're your family now. You protect them, they'll protect you. Got it? We don't want to loose anymore kids…

The sound of the tracks tearing over the snow was really loud after that; because the cab was full of silence and pain now.

Frisk stared at her shoes, realizing how much she really meant to these people. Thinks: Am I really that important? I've… really gotta keep myself safe. For them. And us.


	27. Letter to Readers - Keeper of the Void

**Letter to all my Keeper of the Void Readers:**

I'm honestly so shocked at the attention my story has gotten in the time that I left, it gives me such a warm feeling in my soul to know that it is loved! I've been very concerned about various things in the story that I feared might dissuade people from reading it, and likely it led to me overthinking many things… but it relieves me greatly to see that those specific things mentioned were in fact actually _appreciated_! I worked very hard on this story, and it just- it makes me so happy! 3

So I assume you're wondering now… just why is it that for a story I loved to write so much…

 **Why haven't I updated the Keeper of the Void in so long?**

It's a difficult thing to say. At first… it was because the story grew into a grand crossover between the AU's of my dragonfell and Crudaka, aka CrossoverDude's AU Demitale. We worked on collabing ideas for MONTHS. Eventually… throughout that time, we came to love our story more than… the world it came from.

Undertale.

There was… a lot of debate. I will admit that I was the first to ask why we were even doing this anymore. We had potential to do more than the limits of Undertale's lore and world… and our story had changed so drastically we couldn't even SEE the characters as Undertale characters anymore. Their personas and demeanors had changed so greatly… we were putting so much heart felt work into our story, and we believed that it could stand on its own without the tag of Undertale in it.

So, the Keeper of the Void transitioned greatly in these past few months… its story name went from the Keeper of the Void, to Dragonfell, to MASKS, (which is an abbreviation for "May all souls keep strong". The name also directly correlates to monsters that were originally Amalgamates in Keeper of the Void…. But I put so much love and lore into the amalgamates that they became something other than what was portrayed in Undertale. And frankly, they were the _CORE_ of the story. (w heh)

 **Now that I've properly ranted and probably given you the impression that I hate undertale…**

I must reiterate that I do not. I love the game. It's a master piece, and I'm sure it will go down in history as one of the worlds most beloved games. However after a while of day after day constant exposure to a thing, it can become… more toxic than good. You must balance your life with other things, and I didn't balance my life well. It simply became Something that i needed to step away from. I felt like it was invading my life, and I wanted to be clear of it for a moment.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from writing undertale related things! I made a lot of friends, and I learned many new things. I don't regret delving into the world and writing its characters. I had an insane amount of fun, and it started roots for a story that I fell completely in love with. But there's the thing… i grew greater love for my story over the one I wrote for undertale's.

 **But what about Keeper of the Void? Didn't I say I still loved it?**

Actually yeah. I do still love it. In fact, now that its been some time, I still read fanfictions from other authors, I feel good enough that I might pick up the storyline that I left off on in Keeper of the Void that was unable to continue in MASKS. There are simply many things I had been planning to use in MASKS but because of the world shift to our own story, I can't use those things anymore… and to be honest… I had the entire story mapped out. Thinking back on it, i feel a wave of disapointment for not finishing it... but there's also quite a bit of nostalgia.

I will need some time to compose some information, but I may be able to go back and write the keeper of the void for itself… on the side of writing MASKS with Crudaka.

 **So what about MASKS? Can you read it?**

Not yet. I'm not quite comfortable with posting the story online anywhere yet, and im not sure where I could post it that would allow me to make any revenue… (not to mention copyright problems to tackle,) but also… because Crudaka and I are artists, we are planning to make the story into a comic. For me to post the novella all online, it would be, well spoilers. For now, all we can do is share the characters and samples of their stories.

If you wish to follow us as we concept these characters and such, we can be found on various sites that I will list at the end of this letter! We are glad to answer any questions you might have!

That's about it! Sorry this was so long, but I've just had a lot to say on the matter.

 **Now there's actually one more thing I'd like to mention before I wrap up this letter, and that's the topic of:**

 _is a little frustrating to upload to._ ; Let me know if you would rather read this on archive of our own… as I already have made a profile, but haven't yet fully uploaded keeper of the void there YET. It just seems- that there is a large amount of undertale writers there. Should I be one of them? At first I didn't know of Archive of our own, but I used to read Zelda fanfictions here heh so that's how I knew of its existence. There's also Tapastic... where i am drawing a comci called Skelefrisk. Didn't know about that, did you? So, what are your thoughts? Where do you think i should upload?

Thank you all so much for reading! 3

If you want to keep updated with my work elsewhere, I have pretty much every social media. :U its kinda insane tbh. I'm on tumblr and Instagram a lot these days!

Now if you are on your phone, this link may not work for you, because it is best viewed on pc, or outside of the app. - Updated! List of my Socials

In case you can't view it, here are some other socials that I have:

Tumblr

Instagram

Deviantart

Archive of our Own

My partner Crudaka's Socials whom i highly recommend because she is awesome and i heckin love her art go give her luv:

Instagram

Twitter

deviantart

 **If the links do not work, I've posted them in my profile bio description! I've added a link for my partner Crudaka in it as well!**


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